After witnessing a massive decline in the second quarter owing to lockdowns, ink tank printers are set to lead the recovery of India’s hardcopy peripherals (HCP) market in the second half this year as remote learning becomes a new normal, a new IDC report said on Friday.
Following the disruption in supply chain and demand shock due to Covid-19, the HCP industry in the country observed the sharpest year-over-year (YoY) decline of 59.6 per cent to date in the June quarter.
According to the IDC ‘Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, 2Q20, the HCP market registered shipments of 0.34 million units, a decline of 47.9 per cert quarter-over-quarter (QoQ).
On the Inkjet segment, supply chain challenges along with the pan-India lockdown at the beginning of the quarter led to a sharp YoY decline of 46.7 per cent.
Within the inkjet segment, the ink tank printer segment noted a decline of 41.1 per cent while the ink cartridge segment declined by 59.1 per cent in the same period.
“Due to strong demand for home printers for remote learning and the upcoming festive season sales, IDC expects a strong 3Q20 for ink tank printers barring any major supply issues,” said Nishant Bansal, Senior Research Manager, IPDS, IDC India.
IDC also expects the laser printer to show signs of recovery in the second half of the year, as organisations of all sizes continue to open their offices in a phased and gradual manner.
“E-commerce share will continue to grow, however, brands need to adopt an omni-channel strategy and not ignore their offline channel partners as they will be the main catalyst for recovery and growth in these crucial next few months,” Bansal said.
Amid the gloom in Q2, HP maintained its leadership in the overall HCP market in India with a market share of 29.8 per cent while its shipment declined by 73.7 per cent (YoY).
Epson maintained its second position with a market share of 29.1 per cent while Canon was third with 25.6 per cent unit market share.
The Laser segment (including the Copier segment) suffered an even sharper YoY decline of 74.5 per cent in Q2, following the drop in demand from the commercial segment.
“With the onset of partial uplift of lockdown across the country from mid-May onwards, consumers preferred to procure from e-commerce channels. This resulted in significant growth in online channel contribution to the overall sales by more than 15 percentage points,” said Bani Johri, Market Analyst, IPDS, IDC India.
–IANS
