Canon eyes 40% market share in laser faxes

Canon India is targeting to achieve 40% marketshare in the laser faxes category by the end of Q3 of this fiscal. Presently the company has 20% market share and this ambitious foresight is owing to the fact that the company's recently launched two mid-size faxes viz L-220 and L-295 have been well accepted in the market.

Som Gangopadhyay, Senior Marketing Manager, Office Systems and Solutions — Volume, Canon India, says, “It has been hardly one month since we have launched these two products and we have reports of selling 198 faxes already which is quite high if we consider the industry norms. We expect to sell 250 laser faxes every month in the next quarter and if this is achieved, we would be easily recording 40% market share in the country.”

L-220 has a memory of 350 pages and is priced at Rs 25,000 where as the L-295 is a laser fax-cum-print machine which has memory of 450 pages and is priced at Rs 28,000.

These faxes are targeted at the small and medium businesses, corporates and large offices and the company feels that these machines are only for those who want to do serious faxing. In 2003-04, the company grew by 250% in laser faxes category compared to the same period last fiscal. This year, it hopes that Canon will achieve 300% growth as the need for faxes had always been there and with these two products the company promises to deliver high quality faxing around the globe.

“Today 95% of the government organizations are using Canon laser faxes and this is a proof in itself that we don’t compromise on quality and invest a lot on research and development. I hope that with the launch of these two products, we would make more inroads not only in the government sector but also into BPOs and travel agencies where faxing is a day-to-day activity,” Som added. 

The products are available through 200 resellers in the country of which most are system integrators who have expertise in office automation. “We don’t want these faxes to go to every reseller as it is not a mass product and thus are ensuring that only serious SIs take these laser faxes and sell it to the right customers. The margin which we are giving out with this product is also quite high and this initiates the channels to drive it more,” Som points out.

ATANU KUMAR DAS

NEW DELHI