Printer sales fell 14.5%, peripherals by 12.1% in 2015

For an update to this data click this. Do customers need traditional printers any more? Yes – but not in the same quantity as in previous years. In 2015 total spending declined by 14.5% to reach $34.5B. Unit shipments declined by 11.5% to 138M. It was a close tie for top position in 2015, with HP and Canon separated by only one tenth of a percentage (see Figure). Brother, Xerox, Ricoh and Kyocera took third to sixth positions respectively. I think it’s a good time to look at some of the developments here.

The installed base of printers is declining – a sign of an ageing product type. In total the installed base declined by 4.2% to 579M. Ink jet shipments fell 6.0% and laser printers were down 1.7% in 2015. The evolution of the installed base from 2012 to 2015 is shown in the Figure. I expect these numbers to keep falling. There will be a large growth in solid printers coming in the next couple of years, although this category is currently too small to count in comparison with laser and ink jet machines.

As in many other mature markets hardware sales have been overtaken by services, which now account for 50.0% of the total $225B peripheral market. Supplies are also larger than laser and ink jet printer sales combined – representing 21.9% of customer spending in 2015. Digital cameras are also falling, partially because smart phones and tablets have taken over – they accounted for 6.7% of the peripheral market last year. ‘Other hardware’ includes solid printers, audio visual and teleconferencing equipment and made up 5.0% of spending.
 Asia Pacific’s lead in peripheral spending is declining, with  the Americas are catching up – in fact these regions both accounted for 35.5% of spending on peripherals in 2015. In part this is due to the constant devaluation of Asian currencies (especially the Japanese Yen) against the $US. In 2015 sales in EMEA were just 29% of the world total.

I don’t expect to see any growth in the peripheral market in 2016, but supplies shouldn’t despair: the proprietary nature of printer hardware and the farming of toner business makes this a lucrative market for those with significant customer bases. It’s also a hard market to break into as a result: it’s no coincidence that there are no significant Chinese printer vendors yet – maybe one would like to buy the newly spun-off HP Inc.