Sanjeev Mahajan: Indian Market Remains Price Sensitive

At Conference@2013, NAND’s Sanjeev Mahajan reported on threats and opportunities in the Indian market by analyzing trends in the print consumables business in the Indian sub-continent.

According to Mahajan, consumable sales grew 22% CAGR in 3 years in the Indian market while consumable revenues were US$ 1.1 billion for the financial year of 2013. In this period, approximately, 350 tons per month of printer and copier toner was used by domestic remanufacturers.

Mahajan predicted that government projects, financial, manufacturing and infrastructure services will drive IT in India. However, he also pointed out that customers focus on price so much they tend to accept the poor quality of those low cost imaging supplies. This will create a complicated and unstable business environment. In addition, due to the lack of a united trade association and legal protection, the print consumables industry is facing a number of serious threats.

In Mahajan’s point of view, it is not easy for remanufactured cartridges to circulate in the Indian market, while compatible cartridges will be more acceptable in the region. With respect to the issue of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), he added that aftermarket players in India have been asking for a more organized market, but the process of getting laws written by the government is very slow.