Konica Minolta targets SOHO segment with new printer

Japanese Konica Minolta Business Solutions targeting the small office-home office (SOHO) segment with its new A4 laser printer hopes to close this fiscal with Rs.300 crore revenue, said a senior company official.

"Currently fully built machines are imported from China and spares from Japan. The plans of having a plant in India have not been finalised at our headquarters," Tadhahiko Sumitani, managing director, told reporters here Tuesday.

Like many other Japanese companies Konica Minolta was also mulling a production base policy of China plus one more country, Sumitani added.

He said the company sold around 20,000 units per annum in India whereas in China the annual sales were around 1.4 million units.

According to Sumitani, once the sales volume touches 40,000 units in India then the plan of a production base here might gain traction.

The overall printer market in India is estimated at 1.6 million units per annum.

The three-year-old Rs.228 crore turnover company is targeting the SOHO segment with its new A4 laser printer priced at around Rs.10,500.

"In the future printer with single function-print alone will be confined to small towns where as in bigger cities multi-function machines will have the future," Kuldeep Malhotra, executive general manager, sales said.

He said printers with print-scan-copy functions have been selling more than those having the added feature of faxing facility.

V. Balakrishnan, executive general manager-marketing, said printers were generally bought separately some time after the purchase of a computer.

He said the new printer would come with one year on-site warranty.