Stinky Ink News

Prices of Compatible ink and Toners set to rise in 2008

I haven’t had a good rant today so far, but now this is my opportunity!. In the six years that I have been involved in selling recycled ink and toner cartridges it has been a predominantly UK based supply chain, with most of my suppliers remanufacturing within the UK. A couple of years ago a shift started towards moving production offshore – into eastern Europe when Greenman opened a production facility in Romania. During this time nearly all of our compatible inks came in from China and it appeared that the two different arms of the industry sat alongside each other quite happily.

However events overseas impinged on this happy state of affairs. When Seiko Epson launched their cartridge patent infringement case in the US (known as the 337 investigation) against 24 mainly chinese aftermarket ink cartridge manufacturers and won a ruling from the International Trade Commission (ITC) issueing a General Exclusion order, prohibiting the import of all infringing ink cartridges into the US. This spilled into the UK as well with several major suppliers having their sources of supply curtailed. Some 18 months ago then the UK importers who had a significant compatible inkjet business had the rug pulled from under their feet and had to make some swift adjustments to their business models.

They looked towards remanufactured inkjet and Toner cartridges from the Far East and pursued a very aggressive pricing policy which lead to them totally wiping out the indigineous UK recycling industry. Along with this the Post Office introduced their Pricing in Proportion (PIP) whereby the cost of a parcel is related to size as well as weight, which meant that the cost of bringing back empty toner cartridges in the post was now more than they were worth. So in almost the blink of an eye our Cartridge collection and recycling industries have been devastated. I was chatting to one of my suppliers about pricing of a mono toner cartridge and my current cost price was five pounds below his cost of manufacturing – without him making any profit.

So now here we are, totally dependent on Chinese imports of remanufactured Toners and the consensus of opinion is that our pricing will go up over the course of 2008. A combination of a booming local economy taking up more production for the local economy, devaluation of the local currency and lack of any competition in the UK market means that there is nothing to stop them increasing their prices.

Canon Inc, a leading printer and copier maker, said on Thursday it would spend 140 billion yen (£750 Million) to boost its capacity to make toner cartridges in light of robust demand for laser printers.

Consumable items such as toner and related services are an important source of profit for office equipment makers as they generally fetch high margins and provide a constant revenue stream.

Canon does not disclose sales of its toner cartridges, but its laser printer-related revenues, which include toner cartridge sales, totalled 1 trillion yen in calendar 2006, accounting for roughly one quarter of its total sales.

The Tokyo-based company, said it would invest 80 billion yen to build a new plant in Hita in Oita prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu by September 2009.

Canon plans to spend another 60 billion yen to lift output capacity at an existing factory in Oita city.

Are low cost Colour Laser Printers are now a better buy than Inkjet printers?

Over the course of 2007 we have seen a significant shift in the prices and entry points for colour laser printers. Recently I have seen the Samsung CLP300 colour laser printer advertised for under £100. Asda are now stocking HP Colour laserjet 1600 in their stores for sale at about £135 – pop it in your trolley!. This has prompted me to do a quick comparison of similar priced laser printers and compare their value and cost per page.

Samsung CLP300:

Samsung advertise this as the worlds lightest and smallest colour laser printer. They have achieved this by changing the technology of the laser toner cartridges. Instad of a cartridge which is the length of the printer they use a small drum of toner which clips very easily into the printer and replenshises itself as necessary using their No Nois print engine, which also promises to be very quiet. This is used in their professional series of colour printers and gives quiet operation and simple toner changes.

Print Speed is 4PPM in Colour and 17PPM in Black text mode. Available with USB and also Network connectivity, it is advertised as being installed with 4 clicks of the mouse.

The Black cartridge should give about 2,000 pages (at 5% yield) and the colours 1,000 pages each. With a set of compatible cartridges at £88 or a rainbow kit of original cartridges at just over £100 your cost per page (in colour) is:

Samsung original    £0.10

Compatible        £0.088

HP Colour Laserjet 1600:

The HP CLJ1600 colour laser printer is HP’s lowest-priced laser printer and is advertised to print at up to 8PPM in colour and black and white, with a fast first page out. The printer is advertised as having a very low noise level and is designed to fit on your desktop. Supplies are available online and again you can choose between quality remanufactured toner cartridges or HP originals. You should get about 2,500 pages from the Black at 5% yield and 2,000 pages from the Colour cartridges (again at 5% yield) and the comparative prices are:

HP Original         £0.118 per page

Remanufactured:    £0.078 per page

Both printers offer a high quality colour output, and it is a difficult choice. I personally like the design of the Samsung CLP300 a lot and would probably plump for one of those if Santa is listening

Samsung Electronics, which sees its printer business as its prime growth engine in the long run, has taken meaningful steps in that direction by striking a deal with larger corporate clients in Europe to supply 40,000 high-speed laser printers.

“We won a contract to supply a cumulative 40,000 tailored high-speed printers to government agencies and financial institutions in Europe and Southeast Asia,” a company spokesperson said on Monday.

Samsung will supply 14,000 medium-speed ML-3051ND laser printer units to Federal Pension Fund in Russia, while 12,000 will go to the Venice regional government in Italy. Samsung said 5,000 ML-3472NDK medium-speed printers will be go to France’s job agency, while 2,000 units and 1,000 units are destined for the Thailand policy agency and Malaysian policy agency, respectively.

“We have also agreed to offer a combined color printer, scanner and fax machine unit to financial institutions in Southeast Asian countries including Singapore and Malaysia,” the official added.

Samsung’s printer business has been growing 38 to 40 percent annually over the past few years, compared with an industry average of 3 to 4 percent, according to the company.

The printer business, however, still accounts for a meager 3 percent of the company’s total sales. Samsung hopes the printer business will rise 25 percent to reach around $2.5 billion in revenue by the end of the year from $2 billion last year.

Samsung is still sticking with its marketing strategy in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as these countries take up some 5 percent of the company’s revenue. More recently, however, the company revised its target upward to 10 percent.

After announcing rather upbeat third-quarter earnings in mid-October, Chu Woo-sik, head of Samsung Electronics’ investor relations team, told reporters that Samsung will be ideally positioned for maximum strength and profit from new growth engines such as the printer business.

Samsung finally debut two new Printers in UK

Samsung has finally released their new Sleek, Sexy and Slim laser printers. Designed to fit into any living room and complement the decor, the printers were conceived to be more of a style statement than the usual beige box in the corner. The new Samsung ML-1630 is “the world’s slimmest mono-laser printer” at only 11cm thick, a form factor that explains why the printer is only available as a monochrome laser. The range also includes the Samsung SCX-4500 multi-function scanner and the laser we mentioned before. Prices are £129 and £199 respectively.