Worldwide Printer Shipments Surpass 71 Million Units In 1999.

Worldwide printer shipments reached 71.6 million units in 1999, an increase to 19 percent over 1998 shipments of 60.3 million units, according to Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Group Inc. (NYSE: IT and ITB). The United States and Western Europe led the world with shipments of 23.8 million and 21.4 million units, respectively.

The fastest growing region was Japan, with 1999 shipments increasing 45 percent over 1998 shipments. Asia/Pacific shipments grew 33 percent in 1999, followed by the United States with 23 percent growth and Western Europe with an 11 percent increase.

"Continued strong ink jet sales, particularly in the United States, Asia/Pacific and Japan, helped to fuel the overall printer market," says Paula Bursley, principal analyst for Dataquest's Printers Worldwide program. "The 1 to 6 ppm monochrome page printer market continued to deteriorate worldwide in 1999 as ink jet printers continued to compose a larger percentage of the overall market and very low-end page printers continued the move up the speed/functionality curve. These trends were marked by a radical decline in monochrome page/laser printers 1 to 6 ppm and significant growth in monochrome page/laser printer shipments in the 7 to 10 ppm segment."

Hewlett-Packard was the No. 1 vendor with worldwide printer shipments accounting for 42.5 percent of overall shipments in 1999. Epson was the No. 2 vendor with 21.9 percent market share, followed by Canon with market share of 14.2 percent.

Ink jet printer shipments reached 54.4 million units in 1999, accounting for 76 percent of worldwide shipments. The same top-tier vendors led the ink jet printer segment with HP representing 43.1 percent of the market, followed by Epson with 23.7 percent market share and Canon with 17.7 percent of the ink jet printer market.