The trend probably continued in the second quarter, she added.
“The market may not catch up in the rest of the year to confirm the forecast. A growth of 10% means about $8 million, which is quite a lot of recover if there already is a decline.”
IDC estimated the printer market will go up by 10% in value in 2015 and be flat in volume. The local printer market stood at about RON332 million ($83 million) and 260,000 units last year.
Sales in the first quarter amounted to about 51,000 printers or some RON60 million.
“There was a decline in both volume and value in the first quarter, by 1,000 units and about RON6.8 million compared with the first quarter of 2014,” Decuseara said.
The market was either flat or recorded a slight decline in the second quarter, she added.
Printer market is almost equally divided among laser and inkjet devices. Inkjet devices account for 70% of Epson’s portfolio and the company increased its market share on the segment to 17.5% in the first quarter. The Japanese-held manufacturer had a 15% share of the inkjet printing equipment market at the end of last year.
“Amid a decline of the market we still increased our market share in the first quarter. We have yet to see how the market did in the second quarter but we grew in April-June, too, on the year-ago period, largely because of the launch of the new range of ink tank system printers.”
Epson’s best-selling products are usually all-in-one wireless devices because they do not cost much more than a regular printer.
Epson’s target is a 20% share of the local inkjet printing equipment market in 2015, Decuseara said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)