Western European HCP Market Manages Value Increase

Despite of weak sales performances in both laser and inkjet markets for units, western European printer and multifunction (MFP) market managed an increase in value in the fourth quarter of 2016 (Q4 2016).

According to IDC, the market shipments declined by 289,000 units to 6.2 million, mainly due to contraction in color laser printing. Revenues, on the other hand, grew by 2.2%, with inkjet and laser increasing 1.5% and 2.3% respectively.

Other highlights include:

• Laser market shipments decreased by 7.4% in 4Q16 but value increased, with a 0.8% growth in ASPs.
• Business inkjet shipments suffer a decline for the second consecutive quarter, with shipments decreasing by 7.1% in Q4.
• Business inkjet MFPs declined by 6.3% in volume but only decreased by 2.5% in value.
• MFPs as a whole accounted for 83.2% of the overall shipments in Western Europe in Q4, higher than the same period last year.
• Laser and inkjet MFPs dropped by 2.9%, while laser and inkjet printers decreased by 11.3%, with shipments generally in line with forecasts.
• Business market, comprising laser and business inkjet devices, declined by 4% but value increased by 0.4%. The highest value growth was in 31–44ppm color devices and 70–90ppm mono devices.

“The negative trend in the printing and imaging industry continued in 4Q16,” said Delphine Carnet, senior research analyst in IDC’s Western European Imaging, Hardware Devices, and Document Solutions group. “And the business inkjet segment, which until recently enjoyed very strong growth, is not exempt from the global decline. The volume of business inkjet devices is decreasing, but value decreased at a much slower pace. This is due to the increase in the average selling price for the MFPs, and higher sales in the workgroup/shared devices segment.”

Looking from countries, the German market declined 0.9% after five negative quarters, with a 2.5% decrease in business inkjet market. The French market dropped 5% in Q4, with a 2.5% growth in Inkjet and a 12.7% decline in laser. The U.K. market fell 0.7% in volume, with business inkjet down 12.4%.

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