Global Market of Printers Shows Growth after Several Bad Quarters

The market surveying agency IDC published its new report about the global market of printing devices. In the report it stated that the worldwide hardcopy peripherals market grew 3.6% year over year with 34 million units shipped in the fourth quarter of 2009. Driven by the continued popularity of multifunction printers (MFPs), this represents the first year-over-year gain in the market since the second quarter of 2008. Although shipment values declined 4.6% year over year to $14.3 billion in 4Q 09, this was the slowest rate of decline since 3Q 08.

In previous quarters, IDC says, the key bright spot in the overall hardcopy peripherals market worldwide has been the color laser MFP market. In 4Q 09, monochrome laser MFPs took that honor with 9.3% year-over-year growth, relegating the color laser MFP market to second-tier status among major market segments with 8.0% growth.

Diag. 1:
Worldwide Hardcopy Peripherals Market Share and Year-Over-Year Growth, Fourth Quarter 2009

Diag. 2:
Worldwide Hardcopy Peripherals Market Share and Year-Over-Year Growth, 2009

 Source: www.idc.com

Epson sued in California for trespass and trade secret misappropriation

On July 27, 2009, Green Project, a environmentally dedicated entrepreneurial company that recycles ink and toner cartridges, filed a suit against Epson America Inc. and Seiko Epson Corp.

The suit alleges unfair competition, seeks a declaratory judgment for non-infringement of Epson's patents, accuses the Japanese-headquartered conglomerate of trade secret misappropriation and trespass, and denies Epson's allegation of patent infringement.

Green Project from Los Angeles was added on June 18 to a lawsuit filed by Epson earlier this year. Epson's suit is against a group of suppliers that make "compatible" after-market inkjet cartridges that work with Epson printers, and who also recycle Epson's cartridges. Green Project does not make compatibles; it only recycles original inkjet cartridges.

Joseph Wu, president of Green Project, explained, "We are puzzled by Epson's corporate policy of punishing recyclers of used inkjet cartridges, companies that provide critically needed environmental benefits for everyone."

The counter-suit against Epson is being pursued by Green Project not only to gain relief from the patent infringement case against the defendants, but also to seek damages against Epson and one of its employees, who is accused of surreptitiously gaining access to Green Project's premises and to the company's competitive business information by pretending to be a potential customer.

Source: www.greenprojectinc.com

Key words: Epson, trial, Green Project, remanufacturer, inkjet

Hit the jack-pot with HP: a new campaign in Latin America

HP is now running a campaign in Latin America to attract the local customer to buy more HP original cartridges. The campaign does also mean to discredit the advantage of alternative printing solutions. The website in Spanish targeting local users explains that remanufactured products are nothing but waste of time, ink and paper and that remanufactured cartridges may damage printing equipment.

HP also offers some statistical information to compare the advantages of the original cartridges vs. non-genuine ones.
In terms of volume, original HP cartridges print 119% more pages than generic brand cartridges. In terms of reliability, HP cartridges give 0.0% of failure, whereas generic cartridges: 29.2%, and refilled cartridges: 41.8% average failure rate.

Besides the "frightening" information, HP offers users to take part in the Jackpot game. By buying genuine cartridges users can find a promo code on the box. After introducing the code, they can create accounts, play the game and, if lucky, get pricy prizes. The game can be found at the website www.hp.com/la/jackpot . The promotion targets consumers in Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

This campaign is the second of the type, which have taken place recently. We already mentioned the one in Oceania. HP seems to be testing the campaign in strategically less important regions, before putting it out at a larger scale.

Key words: HP, ad campaign, Latin America, cartridges, inks, remanufacturing

Rap about how costly inks are!

The Printer Ink Rip Off - Rap Song @ Yahoo! Video

Imagine Graphics

In this short presentation you can have a glance at the manufacturing process and distribution network of Imagine Graphics.



The Russian distributor of the company, Digital System is one of the sponsoring companies of the Russian-language magazine - RechargRussia Magazine - published on monthly basis by RechargEast.

Key words: toner, cartridges, Russia, Digital Systems, Imagine Graphics.

RechargEast Seminar in Kiev, Ukraine: April 22, 2008

RechargEast Magazine is organizing a new educational seminar for specialists in the imaging industry in Kiev, Ukraine.

The seminar will be a one-day event organized in the Hotel Lybid in the center of the Ukrainian capital on the day of April 22, 2008.

The program of the seminar is available here.

The seminar is dedicated solely to local remanufacturers and recyclers.

For all additional information contact our team at nikolai/a/rechargeast.com.