More and more printers’ players have started promoting refill consumables to bring down the total running cost of copy and cost of ownership. The trend was first started with Ricoh India , following the steps, now another printer brand, Panasonic India has introduced its genuine refill toners for its A4 sized laser multi-function printers for both entry and mid sized printers.
The company is importing the raw material from its Japan factory and will assemble it at its Bangalore-based partner Micro Data Product. Ajay Madan, Product Head, Digital Imaging System, Panasonic India said, “The rational to launch refill toners were to bring down the cost of per page, service and defect ratio, give value to the customer and increase our installed base.”
The growing defect ratio of printers due to the fake refill toners forced company to come out with its own refill solution. Apart from this, the company wants to take on the growing A3 printer market with its A4 printers and refill solution, which would drastically bring down the cost of copy and also match with the A3 copier output.
Madan added, “The refill toners will be available to all our 29 billing partners and 174 authorised partners, starting from March 10. We have already billed the material and would reach to the partners in this week.”
In MFPs, Panasonic has 15 model of printers including low end and high end. With the new focus on printer business. The company wants to give more thrust to its mid and high end, which are above 28PPM machines through its office automation partners and rest low end printers will be selling through its existing IT partners.
The refill consumables will be available in the price range starting from Rs 480 with the output of 2000 pages ability, Rs 599 for 2500 pages and Rs 1395 for 8000 pages. The company claims, the refill solution is half of the price of its original consumables and the refill solution will bring down the cost per copy from Rs 1.40 paise to 70 paise.
“We would first target A3 market with our A4 printers. Our competition is directly with A3 players like Samsung, HP, Canon ,Brother and Ricoh. Our current market share is 10.5 percent in A4 laser MFPs, with new strategies, we want to take our share to 15 percent market by end of next year.”
This year, Panasonic will be bidding for DGS&D rate contact for its printers and scanners. The new focus will allow Panasonic to sell its printers beyond SOHO and SMBs segment to government, corporates and Jobbers market.
