Epson targets 5% growth
Epson Thailand, the Japan-based printing solutions provider, is targeting 5% sales revenue growth this year.
Yunyong Muneemongkoltorn, general manager of Epson Thailand, said overall spending by enterprises and households has been declining for years, but the demand for inkjet printers has bucked the trend and has been increasing.
Citing an International Data Corporation (IDC) report, he said inkjet printers in 2015 accounted for 9% of printers in terms of units.
This jumped to 15% last year and the figure is expected to pass 20% by the end of this year.
In 2016, the overall printer market was estimated to be worth about 14.6 billion baht.
Dot matrix printers were estimated at 600 million baht, laser printers at 10 billion and inkjet printers at 4 billion baht.
Mr Yunyong said Epson Thailand currently has an almost 30% market share in inkjet printers.
“For inkjet printers that have a continuous ink supply system [CISS] or equipped with a genuine ink tank, Epson has secured a 50% market share,” he said.
The general manager noted that sales revenue, from April till June this year, was up 5% on the same period in 2016, and the company wants to maintain 5% growth throughout the year.
“In 2017, Epson Thailand is focusing more on high-speed enterprise inkjet printers, in order to respond to a variety of organisation demands, especially large enterprises, which is a new segment,” he said.
At present, most of Epson’s printer customers are medium-scale enterprises, small offices or home offices (SOHO), and individual consumers.
According to the IDC report, the total market value of the printer business last year, based on customer types, revealed that 4.8 billion baht was from larger enterprises, and almost 10 billion from SOHO and consumers.
To capitalise on demand from large enterprises, Epson Thailand yesterday launched two new high-speed, multifunction printer models designed for large organisations. The Workforce Enterprise WF-C20590, and WF-C 17590, feature a printing speed of 100 pages per minute, and 75 pages per minute, respectively.