Laser Printers

Last year, HP was the only brand who managed to enter the
User’s Choice Club. In fact, it’s been the winner in this segment ever since
1991. This year, Epson has managed to enter the Club, although with a very low
UPI of 9. For a long time, Epson was considered synonymous with dot-matrix
printers. However, it’s managed to break that image, and has been aggressive
in laser and inkjet printer segments too. Its laser printers, especially, are
very competitively priced.

Current usage patterns indicate that Canon printers have
higher numbers than Epson. However, Canon hasn’t been able to enter the User’s
Choice Club this time, as Epson has taken away the mindshare. HP continues to
have the highest current usage. This is the tenth year in a row that HP has
managed to remain the most-preferred brand in this segment. That’s a decade of
victories for HP, showing how well it has managed to fuel the market with its
range or products.

Today, there’s a laser printer for every need and segment,
whether it’s home, small office, or a large enterprise. Network printing has
also become extremely simple over the years. Today, you can simply plug a
printer into a network, and it’s ready to print. The standard protocol for
printers is TCP/IP, so you can assign it an IP address, and even print over the
Internet from anywhere across the world.

Printers have become more intelligent as well. They can keep
track of which user has fired how many printouts. This can be useful for large
companies to keep track of where all that stationery is going. Laser printers
are also becoming upgradeable. You can easily plug-in an ordinary SDRAM into
some printers today. Some printers also take standard network cards.

It’s been a very successful decade for HP in the laser printer market.
Going by the high margin it has in UPI, it’s likely to continue this next year
as well. Of course, the final vote lies with the users.