Global hardcopy peripherals market returns to year-on-year growth in 3Q

The worldwide hardcopy peripherals market grew 1.6% year-on-year with 31.3 million units shipped in the third quarter of 2011 (3Q11), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker.

Multifunction peripheral (MFP) shipments dominated the hardcopy market with 20.8 million units shipped in 3Q11, representing 66% of total shipments in the quarter. The market’s bright spot remains the color laser MFP space, with year-over-over growth of 24.1%, an impressive climb from year-over-year growth of 8.9% in the second quarter.

“We believe most vendors have recovered from the production issues caused by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in March. While this is a good sign, the market is expected to remain flat for the remainder of the year due to growing concerns about the economy,” said Phuong Hang, Program Manager, Worldwide Hardcopy Peripheral Trackers.

The inkjet market, and more specifically the color inkjet MFP market, is still the technology that holds the majority share of the hardcopy peripherals market, with over 19.6 million units shipped worldwide, 16.1 million of which were color inkjet MFP units.

In 3Q11 monochrome laser devices continued to rank second in units shipped (8.6 million units) with 29% share of the hardcopy peripherals market. All regions except Western Europe and Middle East & Africa saw year-over-year growth in monochrome shipments.

Color laser devices retained a 6% share of the hardcopy market in 3Q11 with 1.8 million units shipped. The MFP penetration at 51% and year-over-year growth of 24% for the color laser market beats these same metrics for the monochrome laser market which are 43% and 17% respectively.

HP continued as the number one ranked vendor in 3Q11 with worldwide market share of 42.9% and 13.5 million units shipped. The Americas region was strongest for HP in terms of unit growth in 3Q11, with 21% year-over-year growth, followed by the EMEA and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) regions with 13% and 9% growth respectively.

Canon maintained its position as the second ranked vendor, with worldwide year-over-year growth of 5.2%. This performance was driven by 8% year-over-year growth in the APeJ region.

Epson held onto the number 3 position worldwide. Despite seeing year-over-year increase in the Americas, EMEA, and APeJ, Epson witnessed a decline of 9.4% year over year in the worldwide hardcopy market and lost one point share from a year ago to 12.6% in 3Q11.

Samsung strengthened its position as the number 4 vendor in the worldwide hardcopy market with 5.7% share, up one point from a year ago. The vendor grew 8.3% year-over-year and recorded shipments of 1.8 million units during the third quarter.

Brother rounds out the top 5 with more than 1.7 million units shipped and 5.5% share, unchanged from a year ago. The vendor’s shipments grew 7.5% year over year and posted positive shipment growth in all regions except for the US.