FEATURE: PRINTING SOLUTIONS
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New, innovative printing
solutions are frequently
being brought to the
market. Here, Intelligent
CIO explores a new
programme aimed at
securing printers from
cyberthreats, as well as
a new environmentally-
friendly option for
SMEs. We also examine
research from InfoSource
which suggests that the
East Africa print market
is representing growth
for vendors.
Analysing the East Africa print market
Chris de Beer, Africa Regional Manager at
InfoSource, has outlined research which
shows that East Africa is representing a
growth region for printer manufacturers.
Growing demand for production and office
printer equipment sales and services, as well
as numerous other factors specific to the
region, demonstrate the need for reliable
information to drive vendor, distributor and
reseller strategies.
“The key players need quality information
that helps them find the right partners,
support the right equipment and develop
the right set of skills to support the dominant
markets in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and
their neighbours,” he said.
Regional factors are overall positive, he
said, and indicate enormous potential
for print vendors and their partners.
East Africa’s dominant markets have
experienced robust economic growth
in the past year but several other more
local influences should also factor into
the overall equation of how print vendors
choose to operate in the region.
InfoSource continued to place its own data
gathering resources in the three major East
Africa economies as part of its 1,400 global
interviews with pivotal market participants
in 2017.
“Our local investigations over the past
few years continued to divulge several
revealing insights about various aspects
of the sector in East Africa,” said De Beer.
“The corruption clampdown in Kenya, for
example, has impacted the industry there
in several ways, including slowing the pace
at which government tenders are awarded.
The majority of the copier/MFP market is
largely based on dropping boxes across East
Africa, while in Uganda growth is generally
phenomenal, albeit off a low base.”
He added that local factors also pushed one
of the resellers out of providing printers to
instead offering ATM cash dispensers and
sorters. Another now supplies solar energy
solutions in addition to printers.
A peculiarity is that colour production
equipment has proven more popular than
mono black and white in Kenya, bucking the
trend in Southern Africa and the rest of the
world. Black and white copier/MFP unit sales
The state
of print
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