Colour printer shipments drive worldwide market growth
Worldwide
shipments of page printers grew by almost 19 percent last year, driven
by a big jump in the demand for colour printers.
The
number of printers shipped in 2005 rose to 21.4 million units from 18.1
million in 2004, Gartner said. The increase was driven by a 44.3
percent surge in colour printers to 3.1 million units.
Shipments of monochrome printers, on the other hand, grew by about 15 percent to 18.4 million units.
The
colour printer market soared last year due to price cuts by vendors,
Gartner said. The average selling price fell 21 percent. The monochrome
printer market, on the other hand, was driven by the growth in small
and midsize businesses and in the number of remote workers needing
inexpensive printers.
Hewlett-Packard held on to its lead position
last year, accounting for 49 percent of all shipments. Rounding out the
top five vendors were Samsung Electronics, 8.7 percent; Lexmark, 5.9
percent; Brother, 5.5 percent; and Canon, 5.4 percent.
Gartner
defines a page printer as an output device that prints one page at a
time. They include laser, light-emitting diodes and solid ink printers.

Worldwide Page Printer Market Grows 18.6% in 2005.
According to Gartner Inc., worldwide page printer shipments exceeded 21.4 million units in 2005, an 18.6% increase from 2004 shipments of 18.1 million units.
Color page printer shipments totaled 3.1 million and increased 44.3% in 2005, while monochrome page printer shipments reached 18.4 million units, up 15.1% from 2004.
“Vendors experienced significant growth in the color page printer market due to aggressive pricing, as the average selling price of these devices declined 21% in 2005,” said Peter Grant, research vice president at Gartner. “Monochrome page printer shipments remain strong due to the growth in small and midsize business (SMB) and remote workers that need inexpensive printers.”
HP continued to lead the worldwide page printer market, as it accounted for 49% of all printer shipments in 2005. HP adjusted pricing of low end monochrome lasers to stem their losses, focused on upgrading their current monochrome install base to new networked printers and expanded their color page printer offering.
“Mature markets grew at low double digit rates, while emerging market grew at significantly higher rates demonstrating the broad strength in the page printer market,” said Grant.
Page printers are output devices that print one page at a time. They include laser, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and solid ink printers.