2014 will be "A Positive Year" for MFP Market in India - IDC

The Indian economy in CY2013 went through a challenging phase with high inflation and a slowing growth. This coupled with the state and national elections created a slowdown of the overall economy and ICT spending.

Despite these challenges, the copier market in India has shown resilience. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the India Quarterly State-Level Copier Tracker shipments were 1.07 million units in CY2013. This represents a 1% decline compared to the previous year CY2012.  One ray of hope came from the colour printer segment, showing 20% year-on-year growth, with mid-segment Average Selling Value and above price-band models.

Rahul Kanwar, Senior Research Manager – Channel Research, IDC India, said, "Tier-III states such as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are growing at 12% year on year. The adoption of copiers as the primary printing device as opposed to MFP, Printer-based is due to the increased printing demand from the SMB, and the Jobbers segment is the major reason behind this growth.”

The A3 MFP (copier-based) market was led by Canon, followed closely by Ricoh and Konica Minolta occupying the third spot in CY2013.

Though the Directorate General of Supplies & Disposals (DGS&D) renewal was done towards the end of October 2013, it could not generate enough demand from the government sector. A sense of relief prevailed in the colour printer segment. In Q4, the colour printer segment observed a growth of 9% sequentially and 18% year on year. The top three market leaders in colour for CY2013 were Konica Minolta with 27% market share, followed by Ricoh (26%) and Canon (24%).