Worldwide shipments of hardcopy peripherals (HCP), also known as printers, declined 3.9% year over year to 22.0 million units in the second quarter of 2022 (2Q22).
Shipment value decreased 5.3% year over year during the quarter to $9.6 billion, according to new data from research firm IDC. Persistent supply shortages continued to affect the printer market and full inventories are not expected until 2023.
Notable highlights from the quarter include:
- IDC expects shipments for the remainder of 2022 to be inconsistent across most segments, with significant amounts of new products being diverted to fulfill back orders and tenders rather than for new business.
- In terms of regional markets, Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan and China) (APeJC) and China outperformed all other global regional markets, posting year-over-year unit gains of 7.4% and 1.0% respectively. The growth was mainly driven by economic recovery across all countries in APeJC compared to the same period last year. On top of that, supply and logistics issues also saw improvements over the past few quarters. Large-scale promotional activities on June 18 in China also played a role in boosting the sales of ink cartridge printers.
- Canon, the second ranked company, recorded 10.0% year over year growth worldwide with more than 4.4 million units shipped. Canon’s overall supply was better in 2Q22 for 4-in-1 ink cartridge printers than for 3-in-1 ink tank printers. There were new commercial models introduced and Canon was hoping for inkjet to make up for the gap left behind by the discontinuation of previous models.
