Kyocera Hopes Cost Per-Page and Partners Drive Growth

Kyocera Mita currently owns about 2 percent of the U.S. business printer market share, but it is banking on lower per-page consumable costs and a channel of partners driving customers to managed per-page printing, to own five percent of the market by 2012.

The company's five year business expansion plan, now in it's first year, is to partner with resellers and integrators doing per-page managed print services, according to Steve Petix, Kyocera's director of strategic channels.

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In January 2007, the company signed IKON Office Solutions, an independent distributor of office equipment and document management services, to rebrand and resell selected KMA products, and in October announced EcoPro Plus, an arrangement with Synnex, one of the largest IT distributors to VARs selling to the midsize and SMB markets. Previously, KMA has sold primarily through one distribution channel, the Business Technology Association, which serves office technology dealerships, manufacturers, distributors and service companies.

"Channels represent the majority of our revenues," said Petix. "We're leveraging the forecasted growth of managed fleet services, and of fleet management growth, which are expected to grow to represent over half, in terms of revenue, of all the printer revenues within the US, over the next four or five years, according to projections from IDC and Current Analysis."

To read about Kyocera calling foul on HP's color printer claims, click here.

One strong point that KMA brings to the market is long-life consumables, with better price per page, said Keith Kmetz, vice president of hardcopy peripherals solutions and services at IDC.

"Customers increasingly realize that it's the cost of using devices that get significant over time, not the initial price," Kmetz said. "With even a tenth of a percent difference in cost per page, over five years, the cost difference can be substantial."

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