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Konica Minolta re-assesses price positioning on A3 laser

Issue #0711/2 - Normally at the highly competitive end of the market, Konica Minolta’s recent price positioning puts the magicolor 7450 right at the opposite end of the scale.

Konica Minolta has made a significant change to its marketing position on its A3 colour printer, magicolor 7450.

Launched in August of last year, Konica Minolta’s pricing strategy in the A3 colour laser category has changed to the point where the magicolor 7400 is no longer one of the more competitive printers at fairly low volumes, when its predecessor, the magicolor 7300, had been.

Overall Cost of Printing has jumped by a massive 15% to push the long-term CPP right to the top of the pile, not only up above the Hewlett-Packard Colour LaserJet 5550n and Lexmark C920 but just higher than Xerox’s Phaser 7400.

And, this is despite a slight reduction in purchase price (4%) when three of the models have remained at the same price over time. Only Epson’s AcuLaser C9100 has felt the benefit of any price reduction, with a change that offers users a rather attractive 23% benefit.

Considering the cost of consumables then, we find that the nominal mono CPP, albeit still relatively low in comparison to Lexmark and Oki, has jumped by 16% - and that for every single page printed!

Nominal colour CPP is up also, but by a more modest 5%, taking it to the same level as Oki but still some way short of both Xerox and Lexmark.

Konica Minolta is not the only manufacturer to have increased the cost of mono printing (Lexmark’s mono CPP has been pushed up by less than 1%) but it is the only manufacturer to increase CPP on colour printing.

Both Hewlett-Packard and Xerox reduced colour CPP (4.4% and 1.7% respectively) as did even Lexmark, by 2.7% (see charts below).

A3 Colour Laser Printers

Long Term CPP - 2005/2007

Note that the Konica Minolta Magicolor 7300 of 2005 was replaced by the Magicolor 7450 in 2007.

Note that for this level of machine, the mixed mono/colour CPP over three years shown in the accompanying table is calculated on the basis of 2,500 pages per month; 70% pages in mono and 30% pages in colour; is based on the use of maximum capacity supplies; takes into account any standard, or starter, supplies shipped with the device; and also includes the cost of purchase. All prices are manufacturer’s recommended prices without tax.

A3 Colour Laser Printers

Purchase Price - 2005/2007


A3 Colour Laser Printers

Nominal Mono CPP - 2005/2007


A3 Colour Laser Printers

Nominal Colour CPP - 2005/2007


~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 12:02 am and is filed under Hardware, Pricing, Comparisons, Issues, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.