HP betting big on A3 printers for growth in India

The American personal computer and printing major HP has introduced 32 new SKUs to expand its A3 portfolio in India

After encouraging response to the launch of A3 printers in October last year, the American personal computer and printing major HP has now expanded its A3 portfolio in India. Recently, in an event in New Delhi, company introduced 32 new SKUs of A3 multifunction printers (MFPs). According to company officials, the new printers offer higher levels of customisation for a wider range of customer’s printing needs.

For the Palo Alto, headquartered HP which has 40% share in a 55 billion global A4 printer market, the expansion into A3 copier market opens up a window of new opportunity, as the company merely has 7% market share in this segment. Globally, A3 copier segment is a 55 billion market and it is mostly dominated by companies like Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Canon among others.

With the acquisition of Samsung’s printing business which has been a significant player in A3 copier segment, HP is now able to incorporate some of the Samsung’s technology along with its recently launched PageWide technology for making printers more differentiated and attractive.

HP PageWide technology is a scalable print technology that uses a stationary print head that spans the width of a page and contains more than 40,000 tiny nozzles, instead of a print head that travels back and forth across the page. Company officials inform that this technology offers fast print speed with energy efficiency and upto 50% less cost per page than the comparable colour laser printers.

“The new A3 portfolio offers advanced security features, affordable colour, and longer device uptime,” said Ng, Tian-Chong, general manager, printing systems, Asia Pacific and Japan, HP, adding that security, smart device services, productivity and cost efficiency are three building blocks on which A3 MFP strategies are built on.

For A3 printers, HP has signed and on-boarded more than 500 resellers worldwide which include 30 new partners in India. “The new partners are trained and can leverage HP’s tools and infrastructure to provide a high-quality service,” said Raj Kumar Rishi, senior director, printing systems, HP India. In addition, HP’s reseller network is extending into HP’s A3 portfolio with access to both A3 and A4.

The newly launched printers have inbuilt sensors to analyse the different functionality of the printer in order to predict service requirement such as cartridge refilling in advance. According to company official this will help them in providing improved services to the end-users and channel partners.

Company informed that HP’s portfolio of A3 MFPs – including three PageWide platforms and thirteen LaserJet platforms – comes with cloud-based proprietary service optimisation platform. HP said that its smart device services delivers maximum device uptime by integrating advanced diagnostics, device specific troubleshooting and remote remediation capabilities into printers.

“HP has 48 percent market share in print segment in India, which means out of every 2 printers sold in India, one is from HP and with new launches we are looking to increase our share” said Rishi.