Issue #0537/2 - With falling revenues on hardware and marginal growth on supplies, Lexmark looks to be a company in difficulty, reacting with higher prices on what should constitute guaranteed sales.
While trying to boost its installed base by reducing hardware prices, so that it can access profitable supplies sales, Lexmark has increased prices on supplies every month for the last four months.
Including changes made in April, prices are now an average of 8.5% higher than they were in February before the rises began.
However, that decries the scale of the increases because the average is affected by a few prices that have actually fallen. About 96% of supplies products have experienced price changes since March, some mono laser products by as much as 18% on average increases of 7.5%.
Price increases on colour laser products are even more dramatic. The average change is just over 12% with increases of 38% on high yield toners for the low-end C510.
So, this latest round of increases amounts to an average of 3% over nearly 60% of Lexmark’s supplies products.
Nearly one-third of mono laser supplies experience price changes with a maximum increase of 12% on the cartridge for the E232/33x/24x series. The average change here is 3.6%.
More than one-third of colour laser products have price changes with a maximum increase of 5% on an average price increase of 2.6%.
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