IDC: Worldwide Large Format Printer Market Delivers Mixed Results in 4Q 2019

Results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Large Format Printer Tracker show that large format printer shipments grew on a worldwide basis in the fourth quarter of 2019 (4Q19).

“Shipment growth in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region off-set declining shipments in the Americas and Asia/Pacific regions, driving modest total shipment growth overall,” said Tim Greene, research director, hardcopy solutions at IDC. “Around the world we continue to see solid growth in technologies such as UV-curable and dye-sublimation inkjet print-ers. Many of the new solutions coming to market are based on these technol-ogies with additional vendors jumping into these technology segments.”

The EMEA region grew by 14% in 4Q19, recovering from a very soft third quarter with the strongest growth coming from Western Europe. Shipments in Canada and Latin America each grew by more than 10% in 4Q19 but declines in the US dragged total shipments in the Americas region down by about 3.5% in the quarter.

Whereas shipments in the Asia/Pacific region (excluding Japan) grew modestly in 4Q19, by about 1.5%, shipments in Japan declined by about 16%. This is an area that IDC is watching closely due to concerns not just about the regional market, but also because many of the large format printers sold by global manufacturers are manufactured in the region and coronavirus con-cerns may acutely impact the large format printer market.

The most common large format printers shipped are aqueous inkjet printers, so the leaders in the aqueous inkjet printer market – HP, Canon, and Epson – tend to dominate overall market share in the large format segment.

HP Inc. is the overall large format printer market leader with 31% of all large format shipments worldwide. Canon’s share of all large format printer ship-ments in Q4 was 22%. Its share of shipment value grew to 13% based on the strong performance of the more production-oriented parts of the Canon port-folio. Epson maintained its third position with more than 17% of total large format printer shipments worldwide.

For the full year 2019, worldwide large format printer shipments declined by almost 3.5%. Growth in UV and dye-sublimation were not enough to offset declining shipments of more mature technologies such as solvent inkjet and toner-based large format printers. Large format eco-solvent inkjet printer shipments were quite resilient in 2019, growing by almost 1,000 units worldwide.