Fuji Xerox Printer eyes niche market

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Printer manufacturer Fuji Xerox Printers (FXP) is eying the growing market of small offices, home offices (SOHO) and home users in an effort to increase sales by between 30 percent and 40 percent this year.

"We have never targeted the low-end market before but we see a golden opportunity, especially in the growing color laser printer market," FXP ASEAN general manager and director Jeffrey Tan said The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He said the company grew by almost 40 percent in Indonesia last year, a result partly due to weak sales in 2003.

Tan said color printers had become more affordable for the low-end market due to decreasing production costs. There was also a growing trend of SOHOs and home users to switch from black-and- white printers to color ones.

"That is why Xerox has launched the DocuPrint C525A laser printer with a price of US$580," he said.

Tan said that in the fourth quarter last year, FXP had an 11 percent market share in Indonesia.

"That put us in third place after Hewlett-Packard and Samsung in the laser printer segment," he said.

He said Thailand was the largest market in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), followed by Indonesia. (004)