Top 8 Digital Printer Manufacturer Revenues over Time
The top 8 printing manufacturers in the world account for about 80% of all digital printing equipment, supplies, and service revenues. They are a good proxy of what has happened over time to the revenues of our digital print industry. Sadly, the revenues of the top 8 printer manufacturers – HP, Canon, Ricoh, Fujifilm, Epson, Xerox, KonicaMinolta, and Brother - have been stuck in the doldrums over the last decade. There has been no total company printer revenue growth since 2014.
Figure 1 Top 8 Printer Manufacturer Revenues, 2008-2024
Source: Investor Relations Information for Top 8 printer manufacturers
Revenues for the top 8 digital printer manufacturers have faced and will continue to face lots of headwinds in the consumer and office segments, where the bulk of their revenues are generated. Production/Document and Industrial Print (non-document) markets are growing at an average of 8-10% a year depending on the sub-segments within these markets, which has been too slow to have been unable to make up for the decline in the consumer and office markets during the last decade.
The outlook however for production/document and industrial print markets is quite good however, as major trends align towards business desiring faster turnaround of every smaller print jobs. This is the inherent benefit of digital production/industrial printing. Yet, for the next five years, the 8-10% growth in production/document and industrial printing may not be enough to halt the decline in the top 8 manufacturer revenues. This is why there is strong interest from the office printer manufactures to expand their presence on the value chain by moving into managed print services and adjacent applications.
Much of the focus in the next five years will be on retaining the high profit margins this industry is accustomed to. We’re already starting to see consolidation on the manufacturing side of the business to manage the downward trend of economies of scale, but that doesn’t drive growth. Growth will have to come from both organic bold R&D investment, and more likely, acquisitions. The manufacturers that will thrive will be the ones with strong leadership, the ones who can overcome the investor pressures for short-term profit and metrics like return on equity, which at this declining stage of consumer and office printers no longer reflect the future health of printer manufacturers. Carpe Diem!