Consumables: 'Profit Engine of the Printer Business'

Consumables continue to drive the print market, a fact that's reinforced by recent findings and forecasts from two industry consulting groups:

“? According to consulting group I.T. Strategies, ink revenues for wide-format as well as narrow-format will grow from $20 billion in 2004 to $32 billion by 2009, while media revenues are expected to grow from $7 billion to more than $10.5 billion. In that same time period, however, hardware revenues are projected to drop, from approximately $15 billion in 2004 to just over $14 billion in 2009.

“Consumables are the profit engine of the printer business,” says Marco Boer, consulting partner at I.T. Strategies. “In the narrow-format inkjet sector in 2009, consumables revenue per printer is about $137. In the wide-format sector in 2009, consumables revenue per printer is about $20,000.”
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“? Meanwhile, says Web Consulting, the overall US market for PVC banner and PVC flexible substrates is growing at a rate of about 7% per year. The value of the US market for these substrates is estimated at $375 million, according to the group's recent research, which also shows that non-US manufactured product represents nearly one quarter of the total volume of PVC banner and flexible substrates purchased for signage and graphics applications in the US. Web Consulting believes that solvent inkjet banner material, flexible signage substrates, grand-format alternative outdoor substrates, and transit/street-furniture PVC substrates will outpace overall market growth.

I.T. Strategies
www.it-strategies.com

Web Consulting
www.web-na.com