Romanians spend more on smartphones or photo cameras than they do on printers.
“The market of office equipment reached EUR32 million in 2011. This sector is seeing the lowest sales of all the durable goods monitored,” says Ciprian Hatneanu, head of Retail and Technology with GfK Romania, one of the companies analyzing market trends.
The photo camera market reached almost EUR50 million last year, up about 20% while the market of IT products where laptops are the top sellers, rose even more to nearly EUR450 million, despite the slow progress of the economy (2.5%).
This was no surprise, Haneanu says, adding “Early in 2011 I was talking about a wait and see cautious approach, especially on the business-to-business segment,” but things changed towards the end of the year. “The market of printers and all-in-ones rose in the last quarter.” The sector reached EUR10 million, up 28% on the same time of 2010. Budgets for office equipment increased in the last quarter of 2011, he added.
Consumers and corporate customers again chose to buy mostly laser all-in-one products, although inkjet devices continued to dominate the consumer segment.
The top competitors on the printer market expect better sales this year, despite the expected performance of the economy, and say customers will choose products looking at the price and cost savings each piece of equipment allows.
The market of printers for business users will go up by several percent in 2012. One of the criteria companies use when choosing printing solutions is the possibility to cut costs, says Cezar Croveanu, general manager of Sama Consul, the only local partner of Canon on the B2B market in Romania.
The leader of the local printer market, the subsidiary of Hewlett Packard, posted higher sales in the first quarter, despite an overall 13% decline of the market, according to IDC data, and expects the trend to maintain for the entire year, says Irinel Ilie, country manager of HP’s Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) unit in Romania.
The local subsidiary of Epson, too, estimates to achieve growth and expects the market to see at least one-digit growth, depending on the leu/euro rate, said Simona Decuseara, marketing and sales manager of Epson Romania. She added she anticipated strong demand for equipment that allows printing many documents at a very low cost.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)