The increase was due to "accelerated demand for the Xerox DocuColor 6060 and 5252 printers" and last month it reported the 10,000th installation of its entry level colour presses.

"With about 55% of all equipment sales in the first quarter generated from products launched in the past two years, it is clear that Xerox's investment strategy is winning in the marketplace," said Xerox chairman and chief executive Anne Mulcahy.

Xerox's total operating profit stood at 133m ($238m) compared to  98m in the same period last year. Revenues also grew over the first quarter totalling 2.1bn, an increase of 2%.

Over the period its equipment sales were boosted by 9% to 551m.

Xerox posted similarly encouraging results in the last quarter of 2003 with revenue growth in the areas of both digital and colour printing products. Its DocuColor 5252 was launched in October last year.

Meanwhile Rick Mangold has been named Xerox vice president of business development for the Production Systems Group. He was previously manager of worldwide sales operations for Hewlett-Packard's Indigo subsidiary.

Story by Philip Chadwick