THE local hardcopy peripherals(HCP) market bounced back with a double-digit growth performance in the third quarter of last year after a
sluggish second quarter.

Shipment units recorded a growth of 1 8 per cent, total-ling 322,895 units, while revenue recorded first-time high at US$75.8 million (RM258 million), growing 1 3 per cent compared tothe previous quarter.

According to DC Malaysia’s market analyst Annie Beh, the single-function and multi-function inkjets as well as the single-function
and multi-function lasers drove the healthy growth. Both inkjet and laser
grew at the same pace of between 19 and 20 per cent.

“With the price gap continuing to narrow between a single-function
and a multi -function inkjet printer, a growth of 42 per cent for multi-function inkjet printers was observed while the single-function inkjet
printer was creeping at a rate of sixper cent.

“AS at Q3 2007, a multi-function inkjet printer was only 1 .5 times more costly than a single-function inkjet printer, compared to 1 .8 times a year ago,” Beh pointed out.

With the convergence in the price gap, the cannibalisation rate of
the multi-function inkjet had taken a leap of 45 per cent, an increase of
seven percentage points from Q22007.

On the other hand, both the single-function and multi-function laser printers enjoyed double-digit growth in Q3 2007 Ä 22 per cent for
the single-function and 12 per cent for the multi-function.

“Besides the encouraging purchasing power from the commercial market, the strong growth in the single-function laserprinter was also driven by the public sector in tandem with the five-year

Ninth Malaysia Plan initiative that was rolled out since December 2006,” Beh said.

According to her, sectors that would be major growth drivers of the HCP market are finance and banking, where the purchases are mainly initiated by the new branches opening in numerous places and refreshments of the existing hardware.

On future trends, Beh said apart from the narrowing of price point between the multi-function and single-function peripherals, growth will be spurred by commercial users looking for ways to increase their return on investment.

“So, office automation equipment (copiers, fax and scanners) are often re-evaluated with the single-function printers owned in companies to reduce expenditure for companies. This was observed by past surveys carried out by DC on the printing needs in Malaysia’s commercial market,which indicated that office automation and printing costs contributed close to one-fourth of companies’ expenditure on an annual basis,” she explained.