Epson recently introduced a new range of printers and projectors for the Kenyan market. The launch comes amidst heavy demand in some sectors in the last few months, with a trend where firms are preferring printing as a managed service rather than just purchasing products.
In the printing space, Epson has seen tremendous success with its “Ink Tank System (ITS)” printers, which replace cartridges with external ink tanks. Such printers have been popular with small and medium enterprises due to their comparatively lower operational costs and their ease of maintenance.
Riding on this success, Epson is introducing the Workforce line of printers, with its sights set on large enterprises, government agencies and county governments. These printers will come with a large ink tank on each side, with the capacity of printing up to 75,000 pages when new, and with each refill. The move will see offices cutting down on costs of printing supplies and reducing common interruptions when printers run out of supplies in between a budgeting cycle.
“The Workforce line is going to take office printing to a whole new level. In addition to having printers that can run uninterrupted for a whole financial year, we are introducing the concept of managed printing services with our partners. Rather than outright purchasing a printer, buyers can pay a fixed amount every year to cover the cost of a functioning printer in their office. Our partners take care of any repairs and supplies, thus taking away the worry of high equipment costs and maintenance concerns from their clients, “said Mukesh.
IDC advises vendors to “shift from box pushing to offering print services to capture opportunity in managed IT services. Revenues from print services and document solutions are growing at a much faster pace than transactional business, which is becoming a very competitive and tough market.”
For SMEs, Epson is revamping its Ink Tank System with additional capabilities, including Wi-Fi direct. Wi-Fi enabled printers are able to cater for new requirements from non-traditional devices such as mobile phones. They are easier to set up and offer support of cloud printing capability when users are not in the physical vicinity of the printer.
The large format printer (LFP) segment in Kenya is also seeing(experiencing) growth, and with this, Epson has introduced a number of printers with the capability of handling large paper sizes in the range of A3 and above, as well as high colour output. Professionals driving demand here include architecture and planning, and an emerging urban photography market.
According to IDC, graphics-based large format printers in the market grew year on year in terms of market share. The market for large format devices will continue to grow in the country going forward driven by heavy investment in large infrastructural projects1.
