Epson aims to cross Rs 2,000 cr revenue mark in 2019-20

IT peripheral firm Epson is expecting its revenue to cross Rs 2,000 crore mark in 2019-20, mainly on the back of growth across all its product segments, according to a top company official.

"We are making a lot of operational improvements and changes to cope up with the evolving market. In the current year, we estimate our growth to be around 14-15 per cent and we aspire to achieve 15-20 per cent growth in the next fiscal year. We are expecting this growth to come from all our product lines," Epson India President Samba Moorthy told PTI.

The company registered a revenue of Rs 1,664 crore in 2017-18 and expects to close 2018-19 with revenue of Rs 1,890 crore.

With 15-20 per cent growth, Epson's total revenue for 2019-20 will be in range of Rs 2,173-Rs 2268 crore.

As per IDC's hard copy peripherals (HCP) quarterly market report, Epson sold 201,565 inkjet printers in the second quarter of 2018 and led the market with 47.7 per cent market share in volume terms.

The company is designing products in a way that they meet the UN goals of making the planet sustainable by 2030, Moorthy said.

"Out of the 17 Sustainable development goals listed by the UN, we have chosen 13 sustainable goals. Our ecotank printers offer low-cost printing and low power consumption. We are taking precautionary measures to meet these expectations. These are the two major driving forces for us to make big progress into the market," he added.

The firm has shifted printer model from cartridge ink to ecotank model, which is eco-friendly and cheaper for customers, the official claimed.

"EcoTank printers are far more economical than cartridge models because of its affordability as the cost per print is 12 paisa for mono and less than 25 paisa for colour compared to Rs 3-4 per print for a laser printer and Rs 5 for colour in a cartridge printer," Moorthy said.

Retail consumer segment contributed 60 per cent of total business of Epson India and rest comes from commercial segment.

There is a big opportunity that exist in office segment for printer business, Moorthy said.

"A significant part of office printing is done through laser printers and we aim to transform that in the next three years," he noted.

Epson India has close to around 4,000-second-tier channel partners who are a mix of both retailers and resellers.

"We will look forward to engaging more closely with the retailers so that the visibility can be far better and more enhanced. We will also concentrate largely on our system integrators. The key focus for us is to see how we can transform inkjet as a core technology in the office space by communicating the benefits of our inkjet printers as compared to laser," Moorthy said.