There’s still room for hard copy in the human universe and the worldwide market for peripherals continued to recover in the fourth quarter of 2013.
That’s according to IDC, which said 31.7 million units shipped in Q4 2013, up two percent from the same period in 2012.
Laser devices grew 4.5 percent year on year, and three of the top five vendors created market buzz.
HP, said IDC, increased its channel support and introduced the HP Rebate programme. Brother introduced several products and both companies showed “solid” year on year growth.
By sector, inkjet devices remains the top tech with over 19.6 million units amounting to 62 percent of the overall shre. Inkjet shipments fell, however, by 1.1 percent year on year for Q4 2013.
Laser shipments saw the third consecutive quarter of growth. Monochrome peripherals represent 82.3 percent of the laser market.
But colour laser printers grew 8.4 percent amounting to over 1.9 million units in Q4 2013.
The top five vendors are HP, Canon, Epson, Brother and Samsung with market shares of 39.8 percent, 20.6 percent, 15.4 percent, 7.5 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.
