allen6368
04-16-2008, 06:44 AM
Hewlett-Packard keeps pace with market demands as smaller printer rivals jockey for position.
Four times a year, Gartner and a host of other technology research firms issue updated surveys on the printing business—looking at total units shipped and breaking out market-share.
Because of HP's longstanding dominance in printing, these surveys can often read like a report on how far the number two and number three players are behind HP.
In its most current survey, for instance, Gartner shows that HP held the leading market-share in page printers, inkjet printers and inkjet MFPs (multifunction printers), the all-in-one machines that combine printing, copying, faxing and scanning functions, and are currently one of the growth engines of the printing business.
So great is HP's lead in the inkjet MFP market, for example, that as of the third quarter of 2007 (the latest period for which data is available), it held a 51 percent share of the market, while its nearest competitor, Lexmark, had just a 20 percent market-share. The number three player, Canon, had just 9 percent of the market.
HP's dominance tends to overshadow the more incremental progress of smaller companies, such as Lexmark, which grew its share of the inkjet all-in-one printer market to 20 percent by the third quarter of 2007, up from 17 percent in 2006. Canon also boosted its share of the key inkjet all-in-one printer market, to 9 percent in the third quarter of 2007, from 8 percent in 2006, according to the Gartner numbers.
"HP is running over everybody," says Jeff Embersits, an analyst with Shareholder Value Management. "I would not want to be another player in that market right now."
Four times a year, Gartner and a host of other technology research firms issue updated surveys on the printing business—looking at total units shipped and breaking out market-share.
Because of HP's longstanding dominance in printing, these surveys can often read like a report on how far the number two and number three players are behind HP.
In its most current survey, for instance, Gartner shows that HP held the leading market-share in page printers, inkjet printers and inkjet MFPs (multifunction printers), the all-in-one machines that combine printing, copying, faxing and scanning functions, and are currently one of the growth engines of the printing business.
So great is HP's lead in the inkjet MFP market, for example, that as of the third quarter of 2007 (the latest period for which data is available), it held a 51 percent share of the market, while its nearest competitor, Lexmark, had just a 20 percent market-share. The number three player, Canon, had just 9 percent of the market.
HP's dominance tends to overshadow the more incremental progress of smaller companies, such as Lexmark, which grew its share of the inkjet all-in-one printer market to 20 percent by the third quarter of 2007, up from 17 percent in 2006. Canon also boosted its share of the key inkjet all-in-one printer market, to 9 percent in the third quarter of 2007, from 8 percent in 2006, according to the Gartner numbers.
"HP is running over everybody," says Jeff Embersits, an analyst with Shareholder Value Management. "I would not want to be another player in that market right now."