According to research by International Data Corporation (IDC), the Western European printer and multifunction (MFP) market decreased by 6,1% in unit terms in 2Q19 compared with the same period a year ago to give a market size of 4,13-million units.
This means the overall market declined year on year by 268K units, but price declines steadied and the value remained flat for revenues of $2,3-billion. This gives a 1H19 market size of 8,54-million units and a value of $4,6-billion.
Overall inkjet shipments continued to decline as home printing continues to contract at a faster rate than business injects increased. The consumer market contracted by 6%, while business inkjet shipments increased by 2,2% with particularly strong growth rates in some countries and segments such as A3.
The overall laser market declined by 2,1%, largely due to very poor results in the U.K. as half of the countries in Western Europe showed an increase. Growth in laser was largely due to increased A4 colour and monochrome MFP shipments, but the A3 monochrome MFP also showed a surprise growth rate, mainly due to tender activity. Monochrome A4 printer shipments contracted by almost a tenth, but remained the largest individual laser segment.
High speed inkjet shipments dipped slightly while serial impact dot matrix shipments declined heavily.
“Poor shipments in some countries such as the UK and the Netherlands dragged the overall Western Europe market down, but some countries such as Italy and Sweden did show growth,” says Phil Sargeant, program director in IDC’s Western European Imaging, Hardware Devices, and Document Solutions group. “In 2019, we have already seen some quite erratic growth patterns across geographies, and IDC expects this to continue over the next few quarters as many of the major macroeconomic factors continue to have a heavy impact on the hardcopy industry.”