Home Printer Brands-from Refillers & Laggards to Bigger Spenders – Dan Ness, November 18, 2016
Home printer makers do their best to make innovate products, manage their distribution, and support their customers – all while competing. Buyers, meanwhile, make their choices. Interestingly, all home buyers aren’t created equally, and some brands have carved out a customer base which may or may not be favorable for them.
Home printer buyers can be tough on some brands. Some users choose refills instead of new ink, while others spend much more on supplies and technology than the users of other brands. Meanwhile, others have a longer printer replacement cycle.
Older and newer printers
HP can justifiably claim that home printer owners get longer use. Users of HP Home Printers use older printers than do users of other major home printer brands. The average printer age is 2.4 to 2.6 years for printers being used in the prior 90 days by Brother, Canon, or Epson home printer users. In contrast, among HP home printer users, the average printer age is 3 years.
Active with images and graphics
Users with some brands have attracted more or less graphics-oriented users. There is a different profile based on their breadth of graphics and image-oriented activities across their connected devices, such as PCs, Tablets, and Smartphones.
Users of Brother Home Printers have the widest range of graphics/image activities. Breadth of use is higher than those with other home printer brands. Nearly half (46%) of Brother home printer users are in the top-third.
Uniquely-strong activities with connected devices among Brother home printer users are creating personal graphics/presentations (38% of Brother users vs. 28% nationally) and work graphics/presentations (37% versus 28% nationally).
Use of refills
Whose Home Printer customers are most likely to use refilled ink/toner?
Among major home printer brands, Epson’s users have the highest rate of using refilled ink cartridges. Over one-third (35%) do so, a 53% higher rate than the national average of 23%. Just over a quarter (26%) of Canon’s home printer brands do.
Tech spending
Brother’s home printer users spend the most on their home technology devices and services. Over one-third (34%) of these users are in the top quartile of consumer technology spenders. Brother home printer users spend substantially more than users of other major home printer brands. At $10.2k per year, this is 30% higher than the national average of $7.9k.
Brother’s home printer users also outspend on levels on ink, toner, and paper. Compared to the national average, their annual spend of $980 is 53% higher than the national average of $640.
Experience levels
Epson’s home printer users have the least tech experience. Twenty percent first started using a desktop PC within the last 8 years, versus the 12% national average. Similarly, 37% first started using a basic cell phone within the last 8 years, a rate 54% higher than the national share of 24%.
HP is at the other end of the spectrum, having attracted a more-experienced tech users. Although this measure of tech adoption – years since first using a given device – also reflects older users, when correcting for age, this same pattern holds true. Epson has a higher share of tech laggards than other home printer brands. Comparing similarly-aged users, more of Epson’s users were laggards – in the last 16% to adopt desktops, notebooks, smartphones, basic cell phones, and tablets.
Among customers with less tech experience, support costs can be higher, and products, marketing messages, and instructions need to be simpler and clearer. Being strong in any particular market segment may have benefits, however if they’re more expensive to support and sell too, over the long run other segments may be more worthwhile to pursue.
About this TUPdate
This TUPdate includes a complimentary brief summary of recent MetaFacts TUP (Technology User Profile) research results. These results are based on the most-recent results of the MetaFacts Technology User Profile 2016 survey, its 34th wave, with 7,334 respondents (US). Trend information is based on prior waves. For more information about MetaFacts and subscribing to TUP, please contact MetaFacts.
Resources
Current TUP subscribers can tap into any of the following TUP information used for this analysis or for even deeper analysis.
The TUP 2016 Printers Chapter details printer brands, types, printing activities, and other key analysis points. The TUP 2016 Technology Adoption Chapter drills down into experience to profile Early Adopters, the Early and Late Majority, and Laggards.
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