Lyra Research's Hard Copy Supplies Advisory Service has published its new Forecast 360 for hard copy supplies. The forecast estimates that just over 100 million aftermarket ink jet cartridges will ship for use in HP printing devices worldwide next year, and nearly the same number of aftermarket ink jet cartridges will ship for use in Epson printers. Lyra's recently released Forecast 360 model offers more sophisticated forecasting tools that integrate emerging market dynamics into more effective data for industry vendors.
Grey Held, director of Lyra's Hard Copy Supplies Advisory Service, explains, "If you look at the worldwide installed base of HP ink jet printers and MFPs, it is almost double the size of Epson's ink jet installed base. Likewise, HP ships about twice as many ink jet cartridges per year as Epson. But when it comes to aftermarket ink jet cartridges, shipments are surprisingly similar. According to Lyra's Forecast 360, a contributing factor to this unlikely near-tie is Epson's growing installed base of ink jet printers that use separate ink tanks for cyan, magenta, and yellow. Also, Epson ink cartridges do not feature integrated print heads, as do most HP ink cartridges."
Lyra highlights this unexpected finding as an example of the refined capabilities of the Hard Copy Supplies Advisory Service's Forecast 360. Elisabeth Wightman, Lyra's research analyst for ink jet cartridges and trends in ink technologies, explains the product strategy changes that Lyra is tracking. "In the ink jet cartridge market, we have seen swings in the types of cartridges offered by vendors. Tricolor cartridges with cyan, magenta, and yellow together are evolving to separate ink tanks, one for each color," explains Wightman. "As a consequence, comparing shipment volumes of cartridges from one company to another has become difficult. How do you compare one tricolor cartridge from HP to a cartridge used in an Epson or Canon printer, which uses three smaller separate ink tanks, one each for cyan, magenta, and yellow? Lyra's new Forecast 360 model takes that into account, creating a better way for clients to compare manufacturers in an 'apples to apples,' equitable way."
