Issue #0901/2 – Printer hardware and supplies price increases are the result of unprecedented speed of currency fluctuation, which continues to cause financial and business havoc around the world. Europe, and especially the UK, are hit particularly hard because all printer manufacturers are headquartered either in the US or in Asia Pacific.
In-store street prices have even risen just in the short time over the Christmas holiday since they were researched for December’s comparison of colour laser printers (article "New Kyocera FS-C5100 colour laser printer will cost as much as 32% less than Lexmark’s new C544 – and there are cheaper still") and then checked for use in this week’s article (article "Best cost effectiveness by far - Kyocera colour laser comparison").
Curiously, the changes are far from consistent. Unsurprisingly, hardware increases are kept to a minimum while supplies prices have risen by anything up to 7.4% - as follows:
|
(Street price changes. Germany - Dec ‘08 to Jan ‘09) |
Hardware | Black toner | Colour toners | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canon LBP-5360 | 1.8% | 1.5% | 1.2% | 1.4% |
| Hewlett-Packard CLJ CP2025DN | 2.5% | 7.4% | 5.5% | 5.3% |
| Hewlett-Packard CLJ CP3505DN | 1.4% | 3.5% | 4.4% | 3.6% |
| Kyocera FS-C5100DN | 0.0% | -6.3% | -5.0% | -4.3% |
| Samsung CLP-610ND | 0.5% | 0.0% | 3.5% | 2.2% |
Standing out as completely bucking the trend is Kyocera, where street prices actually fell during the period. This is, however, untypical and may simply be the effect of new price lists from Kyocera not having been released yet.
Also bizarre is that Hewlett-Packard has reduced pricing in the UK from December 2008 to January 2009 by as much as 14% but more typically by between 2% and 5%. This follows increases within a similar range applied in December’s price list, leaving prices at about the same level as in July 2008 (± ~5%) – and yes, including some prices that are now slightly lower than in July.
Several manufacturers (including Epson, Kyocera and Xerox) have not released price lists for January yet. Where available, we see manufacturer supplies pricing coming in with increases as high as 26%! This is Oki in the UK, where the price changes generally range from 5% right up to 26.6% - averaging 18%. A number of the higher increases are on supplies for legacy devices, particularly mono printers, while most of the single-digit increases are ribbons for Dot Matrix printers.
For Kyocera UK in particular, pricing is complex because it has to be converted first to the Euro for Europe and then to Sterling for the UK. January 2009 increases are expected to be variable but rising as high as 15% in some cases. In the present climate, 15% is not a high increase for the UK to suffer and Kyocera is working hard to minimise the impact, having put off any increases until now.
Hewlett-Packard made no price changes this month for its primary Euro market - Germany. However, prices were increased in October and December of 2008. October saw inkjet supplies prices increasing by an average of 2.2% (and by up to 6.9%). December saw increases on both inkjet and laser supplies. These averaged 4.8% with some increases coming in as high as 9%.
This means that prices on Hewlett-Packard’s inkjet supplies in Germany have risen by an average of 7% and laser supplies by an average of 5% since July 2008.
Whatever happens in the world economy over the coming year, we can be fairly sure that many products are going to cost more in Europe (and the UK in particular) than they did in 2008. Where Hewlett-Packard is concerned, it may prove that the company is hoping to avoid price increases in the UK as a way of helping its customers and also of winning new customers at a time when other manufacturers are increasing their prices. On the other hand, we may see increases back in the list in the next couple of months.
~End~
