Ink-jet profits look to boom in coming years

News by

05 January 2006

Ink sales will drive the increase in consumable revenues over the next three years in the wide- and narrow-format ink-jet market.

Research by US-based IT Strategies estimates that worldwide ink revenues will rise by 11% to 18bn ($32bn) in 2009. The figure is currently 11.5bn.

Revenues in the overall wide- and narrow-format ink-jet market are likely to grow by 7% by 2009 to 33bn. Worldwide revenues are currently 24bn.

"Consumables are the profit engine of the printer business but, in contrast, hardware revenues are flat," said IT Strategies consulting partner Marco Boer.

The research follows last year's significant developments in the market. Fuji tied up a 123m deal to buy Sericol, the specialist UK ink manufacturer. Agfa launched a range of products, HP acquired Scitex Vision, and paper firms including PaperlinX made a play in the wide-format market.

Printweek welcomes informed debate, but please read our House Rules before posting

Have your say in the Printweek Poll

Latest comments

"This is a repeat of what happened to 1066 Capital t/a Crystal a year ago. They also never put this company in administration. We are all still left unable to claim the redundancy and notice pay owed..."