IDC: India's printer market grows sequentially

Despite the slowdown in the consumer segment, a recovery in the India Hardcopy Peripherals (HCP) market was seen in 2014 Q1. The growth was primarily driven by the Government's procurement and supported by the medium and large enterprises in India.

According to IDC, the HCP market in India grew 1.5% sequentially in 2014 Q1 and reached 801,000 units in terms of shipments. This was largely driven by the Government's buying in the Laser segment, which recorded a significant sequential growth of 12.8%. But on the other hand, Inkjet segment performed weakly due to low consumer demand across all price band segments, resulting in a marginal growthof 1.5%.

Mohammed Riyaz Ahmed, market analyst, IDC India, says, "Excluding the Government business, the demand of Laser printer is slowing among the Medium and Large Enterprises due to the combination of national and state elections where Enterprises decided to hold their purchase till the new Government is in. However, overall business from this segment was stable due to the financial year-end purchase, where corporate would like to use up their remaining budgets. All these factors collectively led to the growth of the Laser market."

"All the leading vendors had a bit of inventory issues earlier. But later in the second half of the quarter, a lot of new campaigns and marketing activities were seen in the Inkjet HCP market. As a result, a recovery is expected in the next quarter with vendors targeting back to the school season," says Mohit Raizada, senior market analyst, IDC India.

With increased sales in the Government segment, Ricoh emerged in the fourth position in 2014Q1. It was closely followed by Samsung with just a marginal difference in the market share.