DRIVING THE MARKET: According to the IDC, the overall demand for the printer and multifunction peripherals has been on the rise in the recent years due to aggressive pricing and marketing efforts by most vendors.
PETALING JAYA: After months of consecutive declines, the printer and multifunction peripherals (MFP) market experienced healthy growth during the first quarter of this year.
Industry researcher IDC said the Malaysian market expanded 21.2% sequentially to reach over 320,000 unit shipments in the first quarter of the year, compared to just over 260,000 unit shipments in the last quarter of 2011.
IDC associate market analyst for peripherals research in Malaysia, Donovan Low, said in recent years, the overall demand for these MFPs has been on the rise due to aggressive pricing and marketing efforts by most vendors.
"On top of this, commercial tenders are also driving the market up with more strategic pricing and overall solutions being offered," said Low.
Inkjet printers and MFPs proved to be popular choices amongst the local home user demographic, dominating the total hardcopy peripherals market holding a 61.7% market share, as compared to laser printers and MFPs with just over 35.0%, followed by serial dot-matrix printers at 3.3%.
Driven largely by large scale commercial tenders and total solutions offered by vendors, laser printers and MFPs experienced a significant growth of 39.7% in Q1 this year.
The laser MFP market experienced a strong quarter-on-quarter growth of 92.0%, representing more than 62,000 unit shipments in Q1, as compared to the 4.0% growth recorded for laser printers.
IDC expects spending by individual end-users, as well as the public and private sectors, to fluctuate in coming months. Also, the contraction of the global economy will decrease the overall spending of users causing further uncertainty in the months ahead, it said.
"Considering these factors, IDC expects slow but steady growth ahead for the printer and MFP market, and this is projected to grow 5.5% this year," Low said.