Digital imaging company Canon has introduced a slew of initiatives with an aim of becoming the number one player in the inkjet printer category in India in the next three years.
The Japanese company which stood at number two position in this category in India with a market share of about 23 per cent (according to CyberMedia Research) in third quarter of CY2012, is looking at introducing newer range of inkjet printers which can reduce the printing costs further.
The company is also planning to expand Canon brand stores to 300 by the end of 2014 from about 80 now. Canon brand stores sell the company’s range of products starting from camera to printers. Besides, Canon is also planning to make its products available in about 2,500 multi-brand stores by the end of 2015 from about 850 at present.
“We had seen phenomenal growth in the inkjet category in India during the last one year by improving our market share from 16 per cent in 2011 to 23 per cent in the Q3 of 2012. We are optimistic that the strong marketing initiatives we have undertaken and the new range of ink efficient printers we are planning to launch in near future would help us to become the leader in this space by 2015," Alok Bharadwaj, Senior Vice President of Canon India told Business Standard.
According to CyberMedia Research, HP was the number one player in the inkjet printer category in India with a market share of 51 per cent followed by Canon, in the third quarter of CY2012. However, in the Asia Pacific region, Canon is the number one player in the inkjet printer category with a share of 41 per cent followed by HP at 36 per cent (as of Q2 of CY2012), according to research and analyst firm IDC. India is the only country in Asia pacific where Canon lags behind HP.
The inkjet printer market in India which stood at 1.21 million units in 2011 is estimated to reach 1.26 million (Rs 1,000 crore in value term) in 2012. During the same time, the laser printer category which accounts for about 55 per cent of the overall printer market is estimated to become 1.6 million units (Rs 2,000 crore in value term).
However, the Indian customers are gradually shifting their preference from laser printers to inkjet owing to significant reduction in the running cost (printing cost of one sheet of paper). For example, the running cost for inkjet printers which used to be Rs 2.50 per black and white printing as compared to Rs 1.00 in case of laser printer, has now come down to about Rs 0.91 paise.
The ink efficient range of printers introduced by leading players such as HP and Canon has significantly brought down the cost of printing.
“While our inkjet category of printers was earlier mostly used by household users, we are now seeing this getting significant acceptance among the small office home office (SOHO) category. We are using our strong sales network that is already selling our copier multi-functional products to expand inkjet printers among SMEs and enterprises," said Bharadwaj.
Canon India is expecting to close 2012 with revenues of Rs 2,000 crore, a growth of 27 per cent over the previous year.
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