Prague, 6 August 2007 – The Russian hardcopy peripherals market declined 3.6% in volume in 2006 but expanded 7.5% in revenue to almost 4.4 million units valued at more than $1.2 billion. According to a recent IDC study, this reflects the market shift from entry-level devices towards more advanced, higher quality products. Despite the decline in 2006, IDC expects the Russian hardcopy market to regain momentum and shipments to expand by an annual average of around 7% over the next five years.

The top three vendors in 2005 - HP, Canon, and Epson – retained their leading positions in 2006 and together controlled more than three quarters of the market. While HP was the overall market leader, Canon led the inkjet printers and single-function copiers segments, and Epson grabbed most of the rapidly shrinking dot matrix printers market.

“For many end users, purchasing price has become a less important consideration than functionality, network capability, and cost per page,” said Alexander Goloshchapov, Senior Analyst, IDC Russia/CIS. “We expect that the country’s good economic performance and increasing disposable income will stimulate renewed growth of the hardcopy peripherals market in the coming years, with a notable move towards multi-functional peripherals.”

Nevertheless, single-function printers accounted for the majority of hardcopy peripherals shipped in Russia last year, although the number of units contracted by 16.0% year-on-year. By contrast, shipments of multi-functional peripherals shot up 31.0% to account for more than a third of the market. The single-function copier market decreased 13.3% in volume to make up less than 4% of the total HCP market.

Monochrome laser was the dominant technology, accounting for more than a half of HCP shipments on the Russian market in 2006. The inkjet technology is not as poplar in Russia as in other European countries, constituting just a little over 43% of the Russian market volume. Color laser was the only technology segment to record unit growth in 2006, soaring over 31% year-on-year.

“The color laser segment is still relatively underdeveloped in Russia, accounting for 1.4% of shipments but almost 10% of the market value,” said Mr. Goloshchapov. “We expect shipments of color laser machines to grow faster than the overall market average due to falling prices and intensive promotion campaigns.”

IDC's Russia Hardcopy Peripherals 2007-2011 Forecast and 2006 Vendor Shares (IDC #EH10P) discusses the market for hardcopy peripherals – single function and multifunctional. It does not cover point-of-sale printers or small-format printers featuring widths of less than eight inches. It also does not cover wide format (A0) products, sometimes known as plotters. The forecasts contain data for the Russian peripherals market from 2007 through 2011. Unit shipments, value of shipments, and average street price (ASP) information is presented. Data for 2005-2006 is actual, whereas data for 2007-2011 is projected.

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