Evolution of the Printing Industry

The printing industry has not been doing too well in the recent past, due to the ongoing cost-reduction drive of customers and enterprises as well as environmental concerns. As a result, many of the largest players in the space, including Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ - Analyst Report), Xerox Corporation (XRX - Analyst Report), Lexmark (LXK - Analyst Report) and Canon (CAJ - Analyst Report) have been battling gradually declining revenue and profits from their printing businesses.
 
Both HP and Xerox have come out with environment-friendly products, although we do not expect them to do exceptionally well in the near term as companies continue to stay away from investment in additional printers and the associated cost of paper, inks, consumables and so forth.
 
This is one of the major factors driving the transition to managed printing services (MPS), defined by Gartner as “the ability for the service provider to take primary responsibility for meeting the customer's office printing needs, including the printing equipment, the supplies, the service and the overall management of the printer fleet”.
 
Gartner currently defines Xerox and HP as the market leaders in MPS. Lexmark, Ricoh, Pitney Bowes (PBI - Analyst Report), Canon and Toshiba are listed as challengers.
 
A recent survey by Quocirca Research (co-sponsored by Xerox) found that printing costs were 10% of total IT budgets for 41% of the respondents, with the number rising to 65% in case of the financial services industry; that half the U.S. respondents hoped to save 30% of costs from MPS implementation; that 60% of current MPS users surveyed were satisfied and MPS implementation exceeded expectations for another 25%.
 
Additionally, Photizo Group, which specializes in primary research for the MPS market, expects the market to grow at a CAGR of 25% to $26 billion by 2012-end.
 
Although the Printing Industry Association (PIA) is skeptical about the growth potential and views this divergence of hardware manufacturers to the services sector as a negative, we believe this is the only way to grow in this highly competitive market.

Read the full analyst report on HPQ

Read the full analyst report on XRX

Read the full analyst report on LXK

Read the full analyst report on CAJ

Read the full analyst report on PBI