Latest IDC Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker Data Shows 6% Year-Over-Year Growth for This Important Market Category

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., June 2, 2009 – The brightest spot in the overall worldwide hardcopy peripherals (HCP) market during the first quarter of 2009 (1Q09) was color laser multifunction peripherals (MFPs), with its strong showing of 6% year-over-year growth in a challenging economic environment. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, the overall MFP market has faired much better than the single function printer market, as products continue to make the transition towards multifunction.

Total worldwide hardcopy unit shipments declined 18% year over year to 26.4 million units, while shipment value fell 21% to $12.8 billion in 1Q09, the third consecutive quarterly decline. "IDC continues to expect a recovery for the HCP market in early 2010," said Phuong Hang, program manager, Worldwide Hardcopy Peripheral Trackers. "IDC expects that vendors will employ several strategies to weather the current economic downturn. The battle will continue in the channel to gain go-to-market strength and capacity. Vendors will also focus on offering cost cutting and/or productivity enhancements to customer’s existing document infrastructure as well as driving managed print services."

The MFP market remains the dominant product type in the overall hardcopy peripherals market with a 62% share and 16.3 million units shipped in 1Q09. MFPs were the least impacted of the product types with –10% year-over-year growth. The single-function printer market was hard hit again with a –28% growth rate resulting in shipments of 9.9 million units as the market continues to move towards MFP devices. The color laser MFP market was the only segment with year-over-year growth (6%), resulting in a 1Q09 market size of 632,000 units.

By technology segment, IDC's data revealed the following results.

• The inkjet market declined by 15% year over year to 17.8 million units. The decline was less severe than the previous quarter's –18% growth, when products tied to holiday buying were hit the hardest as consumers pulled back their spending.
• The monochrome laser market grew –23% year over year to 6.4 million units. This was more severe than the previous quarter's –17% year-over-year growth.
• The color laser segment declined 15% year over year to 1.4 million units. This was weaker than the 1% growth in 4Q08.

Vendor Highlights

HP – Despite –24% growth year over year, HP remains the leading vendor in the total hardcopy peripherals market with 41% share, down from 44% in 1Q08. The majority (60%) of HP's shipments are MFPs, which showed a less severe decline (–14% year over year) and resulted in a drop in market share of 2 points to 39% in that segment. The brightest spot, as expected for HP, was the color laser MFP segment, where HP grew unit shipments 35% year over year and gained three points in market share. Another segment that did well for HP compared to other market segments was the color inkjet MFP segment. Here, HP's shipments declined only 14% year over year and HP lost 2 points in market share. HP's technology mix has increased in favor of inkjet year over year to 73%, an increase of 4 points. Inkjet MFP shipments have also increased just under a half of a point in favor of color laser MFP technology.

Canon – Canon did quite well compared to its competitors in 1Q09, and remained the number two vendor in the hardcopy peripherals market. Canon's unit shipments declined only 6% year over year, resulting in an increased market share of 17%, up 2 points from 1Q08. Canon's 4.6 million units are split 61% in favor of MFPs. Canon's MFP shipments faired the best, as with other vendors, and Canon gained two points in market share in 1Q09. Canon's technology mix has increased in favor of inkjet by 2 points to 83% inkjet, 15% monochrome laser, and 2% color laser, when compared to 1Q08. Within this mix, however, things have changed slightly in favor of MFPs. It is most apparent in the inkjet segment.

Epson – Epson's decline was slower in 1Q09 than 4Q08, –13% vs. –14% growth, respectively. Rounding out the top 3 spot, Epson's overall performance was much better than the top player, trending at –13% year over year. Epson's share accounts for 14.8% (3.9 million units) of the total hardcopy peripherals market, a 0.7% increase from a year ago. On a worldwide basis, MFPs showed a slower decline than single-function printers, -7% and –25%, respectively. Within Epson's technology mix, its laser share remained at 2% while its inkjet share increased 4 points to 89% from 1Q08. Compared with other vendors, Epson did quite well in the inkjet segment, gaining a point to 20% share (2.7 million units) in the worldwide inkjet MFP market, and maintaining an 18% slice in the printer segment.

Brother – Brother's 1Q09 performance was very good. The number four player outperformed all others in the top five. Brother is the only vendor with positive year-over-year growth (+3%) and accounts for 7.1% (1.9 million units) of the total hardcopy peripherals market, an increase from 5.6% in 1Q08. Within Brother's technology mix, inkjet remains the dominant technology with 1.1 million units shipped in 1Q09 equating to 60% of Brother's total shipments. Laser MFPs performed well in Latin America (+60%), Middle East and Africa (MEA) (+38%) and Western Europe (+22%). The biggest defeat for Brother's laser MFPs was in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with year-over-year growth trending at –58%.

Lexmark – Lexmark's total share fell 1 point to 5% (1.3 million units) in 1Q09 while remaining the top 5 player in both printers and MFPs. In contrast to the 4Q08 trend where its printers came out on top, Lexmark's MFPs performed better than printers in 1Q09, –23% vs. –37% year-over-year growth, respectively. Its MFPs experienced the most growth in MEA (+23%) and Western Europe (+3%) and had the largest declines in Japan (–100%) and Latin America (–64%). Printer shipments faired best in Japan (+301%) and MEA (–11%) and worst in CEE (–66%) and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (–48%). Although laser MFPs continued to expand, its positive growth had slowed down from 20% in 4Q08 to 12% on a worldwide basis.

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, June 2009

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, June 2009

Notes:

• IDC tracks A2-A4 devices in the Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals
• Hardcopy Peripherals include single-function printers, printer-based multifunctional systems (MFPs), and single-function digital copiers (SF DC). Data for all vendors are reported for calendar periods.
  
  

For more information about IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, please contact Phuong Hang (Phang@idc.com).

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