The face of printing has dramatically changed over the last two to three years yet never so much as in the last 12 to 18 months. The barrage of new photo printers as well as the onslaught of less-expensive yet high quality digital cameras in the marketplace has made their mark in the printing world. The average consumer now looks to print their own photos from home which has had a positive bottom-line effect for the manufacturers of ink cartridges and papers.

However, the additional revenues will be even stronger in the coming months with dramatic increases during the holiday months due to the extremely high number of photographs taken and shared during the holiday season. The consumption rate of ink cartridges is much higher particularly in the last year due to heightened use of the home printer. The greatest increase in printing is photographs as well as graphics such as invitations, flyers and the like. The printing of photos and graphics uses nearly three times the amount of ink over the printing of strictly black-ink papers.

PrintCountry.com Office Supplies announces the breakdown of its printer ink cartridge sales figures for 2004 with the most popular printer brands being HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark. Following suit with the past three years, HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark are once again the top four companies with the highest figures for supplies orders.

HP’s last 2004 quarterly revenue for its imaging and printing division is $6.1 million. Epson follows HP in 2nd place in the printer market again for 2004. Companies in the printer business such as HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark make the majority of their revenues from printer supplies, printer ink and toner cartridges.

Although HP manufactures more printers and has a higher market share in the US, PrintCountry.com has been selling its competitor Epson’s supplies twice as often as HP and rival Canon over the past three years. HP only represents 19.6% of the PrintCountry.com inkjet supplies orders in 2004, a decrease of 22.1% from 2003. While Epson’s order percentage goes as high as 33.9%, which is almost the same as last year’s 34% share., Other big rival Canon’s orders remain at 14.6%, followed by Lexmark with 12.8%.

PrintCountry.com believes the main reason Epson is selling more printer ink supplies than HP is directly related to the printing of photos by the consumer. Epson is quite dominant in the digital photography printing arena. The most recent InfoTrends/CAP Ventures’ survey, which studied 220 respondents in North America, provides some interesting figures. All of the participants in the survey had digital photo, proof and/or art printing equipment. Survey results show that 85.6% of respondents reported they would most likely purchase an Epson printer, while no other vendor reached even 7%.

What will happen in 2005?
According to Jennifer Douglas, Director of Operations at PrintCountry.com, the year as a whole and especially the coming months will see HP continuing to be the #1 printer manufacturer. HP will continue to realize greater gains as a corporation while selling more products bundled together such as computers, servers, cameras, etc. Epson will gain additional market share. Epson printers are becoming more and more popular among photo printer users who consume large quantities of printing supplies These consumers will consequently have a strong effect on Epson’s (high) number of printer supplies sales. Canon will be ranked 3rd again but will get closer to Epson. Canon’s market share will also increase as they manufacture photo printers along with high quality digital cameras. On the other hand, Dell will be changing these numbers dramatically in 2005 by gaining more and more market share in the printing industry.

About PrintCountry.com
PrintCountry.com Office Supplies is an industry leader in printer ink cartridges (since 2001), selling high quality ink & toner cartridges and other office supplies for all major brands including HP, Epson, Canon, Lexmark, Brother, Xerox and many others. In addition to the original manufacturer's cartridges (OEMs), PrintCountry.com offers a wide selection of remanufactured cartridges, compatible ink cartridges, and ink refill kits all of which are of equal quality as the OEMs yet they are substantially lower in price. All supplies are manufactured by ISO 9001 certified manufacturers and are held to rigorous quality assurance standards.

PrintCountry.com Office Supplies
4990 Greencraig Ln. Suite C
San Diego, CA 92123
Telephone: 1-858-430-1700
Fax: 630-566-0708
http://www.printcountry.com
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