The printer, once an indispensible peripheral, has become so peripheral that sales are in decline. How did the printer business reach this sorry state of affairs? Blame it on the combination of mobile devices and cloud storage.
Printer manufacturers have been warning investors to watch out for slower sales. In February, HP CEO Meg Whitman said in a conference call with analysts that the company was suffering a loss in both printers and ink – a division she said “was always the go-to place for more money at HP.” Printers had long accounted for about 20% of HP’s revenue, but commercial printer sales fell 5% and consumer printer sales declined 15%.
In May, after another quarter of similar declines, Whitman went into more detail. “People who have home printers are printing less photos in their homes,” she said. And this month, Lexmark, which derives 93% of its revenue from laser and inkjet printers, said its revenue would fall 12% this quarter. Lexmark’s stock has fallen 30% since that announcement.
Printer makers aren’t suffering for lack of innovation. The advent of 3D printers promises a new horizon, provided the incumbent printer makers can adapt. But until 3D printing technology goes mainstream, they will be stuck wringing money from inkjets and dot-matrixes.
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