Dataquest Forecasts the Asia/Pacific Desktop Printer Market to Grow 23 Percent in 1995; China and Thailand Are the Region's Fastest-Growing Printer Markets.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 17, 1995--The Asia/Pacific desktop printer market is expected to grow 23 percent in 1995 to 4.4 million shipments, and the market is forecast to increase another 20 percent in 1996 with 5.3 million shipments, according to a new Dataquest forecast.

The desktop printer market will continue to rise because of the strong growth of the personal computer market and the expanding economies in the region.

"The Asian desktop printer market is very price-sensitive and is still oriented toward serial dot matrix printers because of their low cost," said Sandra Ng, Document Management Market Analyst in Dataquest's Singapore office. "However, the market is moving quickly to nonimpact printers--ink jet and laser printers--as Asian buyers become more sophisticated, the expanding economies afford users more money to spend, and nonimpact printer pricing approaches that of dot matrix."

Although the Chinese, Malaysian, and Thai printer markets continue to display strong growth, the Hong Kong and Singaporean markets have struggled (see Table 1). Because of the small populations in these city-states and their free-port status, distributors and resellers will resell to users and resellers in other countries and regions such as China, Indonesia, eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Such re-export sales are a key part of the desktop printer markets in Hong Kong and Singapore, and the growth of their respective domestic markets was not able to compensate for declines in re-exports. -0-

Table 1
1995 Asia/Pacific Desktop Printer Shipment Estimates by Country
(Thousands of  Units)

Country         1993        1994     1993-1994     1995    1994-1995
             Shipments  Shipments   Growth (%)  Shipments  Growth (%)

South Korea      487.9       719.0       47.4      825.4       14.8
Australia        450.5       553.9       23.0      685.0       23.7
China            305.2       435.7       42.7      608.0       39.6
Taiwan           221.6       263.8       19.0      287.1        8.8
Hong Kong        110.5       242.7      119.6      225.7       -7.0
Indonesia        162.4       215.9       32.9      246.6       14.2
Singapore        199.4       185.0       -7.2      218.0       17.8
Malaysia         127.2       174.9       37.5      203.8       16.6
Thailand          82.9        99.5       19.9      124.9       25.5
Rest of
Asia/Pacific     521.4       700.7       34.4      999.2       42.6
Total          2,669.0     3,591.1       34.5    4,423.7       23.2

Source:  Dataquest (July 1995)

The Dataquest Asia/Pacific Printer Tracking Service provides annual, syndicated market research coverage of the desktop printer markets in up to 10 Asia/Pacific countries. This program includes quarterly reports for each country, a regional monthly newsletter titled PrinterAsia, and client inquiry services.

For more information about purchasing Dataquest reports, please call 800-419-DATA. More information about Dataquest's services, descriptions of recent research reports, and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://www.dataquest.com.

Dataquest Incorporated, headquartered in San Jose, California, is a 24-year-old global market research and consulting company serving the high-technology and financial communities. The company provides worldwide market coverage on the semiconductor, computer systems and peripherals, communications, document management, software, and services sectors of the information technology industry. Dataquest is an international company of The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.

CONTACT: Dataquest Inc.

Tom McCall, 408/437-8312

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