Why Printer Sales is Declining

Printers were once an essential peripheral. Recently, though, they have become nothing more just a ‘peripheral’. As a result, sales have considerably declined. What’s to blame? Mobile devices and cloud storage—that’s according to a recent article on ReadWriteWeb. 

Meg Whitman, HP CEO, said that the company experienced sales loss in printers and ink. What previously accounted for 20% of their revenue has now declined—commercial printer sales is down by 5% and consumer printer by 15%. Similarly, Lexmark, which takes 93% of their revenue from laser and inkjet printers, said that they expect a 12% decrease in revenue this quarter. 

The article, however, stressed that lack of innovation is not the reason for the decline. On one hand, the advent of 3D printers opened new horizons to consumers and print users. On the other, unless printer manufacturers can adapt to 3D printing, they will be stuck squeezing money from inkjets and dot-matrixes.

Lexmark puts the blame on the slow European economy. Aside from the economy, the article also cited mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, and other devices. With the development of these gadgets, more people have started to use virtual documents instead of printing out the pages like before. 

The writer concluded that printers won’t die but they will be used less and less. They will still have a place in the office, but they’ll just be what they are—a peripheral.     

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