By Ramdas S
Imaging solutions vendor Epson India is betting on inkjets by positioning them for use in the commercial segment which is heavily dominated by laser printers. The vendor is also trying to educate partners about the advantages of positioning inkjets for businesses.
“Laser printers are not eco-friendly. Besides, they consume more power, between 3-5 times more than our business inkjets. Today we are able to offer laser-quality speeds of almost 38 papers per minute at a cost of less than 50 paise per print for monochrome printing, and less than Rs 1.50 per print for color,” said SM Ram Prasad, Senior Business Manager, Epson India.
Epson has positioned its Stylus Office T30 and T40W in a range starting at around Rs 13,000 on the street, and has been running awareness campaigns for both channels and end customers.
“While Epson’s plan looks good on paper, the printers are obviously priced higher than entry-level laser printers, and there’s a lack of customer awareness about the running costs which Epson is talking about,” commented Vishal Tripathi, Principal Analyst, Gartner India.
Another problem Epson is facing is the loss of market share in consumer inkjets and lasers which has meant that channel confidence in the company has gone down. While its laser market share is down to the low single digits, Epson still enjoys double-digit market share in inkjets though even here it has been relegated to the third spot by HP and Canon.
Prasad defended the company’s game-plan. “While the competition relies on selling the printer at less than its cost, hoping to make money on the cartridges, we price the cartridges much lower and do not discount the printer. Hence, any serious user will tend to buy from Epson because our cartridge prices are between 30-50 percent lower than the competition in some cases.”
According to Prasad, Epson is trying to educate partners about the benefits of business inkjet printing, and will be running road shows, seminars and mailers to ensure that they start convincing their customers. “It takes time, but we are already seeing results. We will slowly but surely start regaining our lost market share through business inkjets.”
He said that in Q4 FY2010-11 Epson will revamp its business inkjet range. “Our next round of product refresh will completely change the office printing space.”
Meanwhile, the company has started a 10-city road show to showcase its new nSolution partner program. “Over the years, Epson’s products have been part of some of the compelling solutions in several verticals. We have now decided to build solutions which the partners can readily take to the market and solve specific problems of various verticals,” informed Prasad. “We plan to sign on around 2,000 partners, and will also target independent software vendors to create solutions that can be bundled for these verticals.” |