It’s hard to believe the printer, developed in 1962 – the same year the cassette tape was invented – remains as relevant today as it was 62 years ago. Companies, regardless of their size, still rely on the printer for basic operations, including the endless need for paperwork demanded by bureaucracy. The revenue for the printer and copier market in South Africa in 2024 is $61.1 million, according to Statista, with an anticipated volume growth of 2% in 2025. The local market has steadily recovered since 2020, reflecting the trends in the global market, which is showing impressive growth, from $54.35 billion in 2024 to a predicted $67.88 billion by 2029. South Africa, along with Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya, owns the largest share of printers and copiers in Africa.
Globally, printers remain a viable business model for companies that have invested in the technology to build thriving print-on-demand (PoD) services. According to Precedence Research, the PoD market is anticipated to reach $87.13 billion by 2033 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.9% from 2024. Printer manufacturers have also sought out new ways of optimising printer sustainability and finding new revenue opportunities, prioritising AI, environmental awareness, cost-optimisation and security.
“The environment has rapidly changed over the past three to four years, with organisations wanting economical solutions that add value and offer increasingly flexible and relevant functionalities,” says Timothy Thomas, country manager at Epson. “Companies are also prioritising flexible or work-from-home environments and this change has required a complete rethink of printer investments and expectations.”
Great expectations
Many organisations are re-evaluating how printers can adapt to fit lower demand in smaller office spaces while still meeting the requirements of flexible working teams. The need for high-capacity devices is changing as companies prioritise solutions that can be customised to suit lower demand and changing printer expectations. Investments are shifting from on-site printing solutions to smaller printers located in home offices, providing print support to employees who work from home. Printing companies are also stepping into new territory, focusing on how they can leverage digital and increasingly cost-effective printers to build new revenue streams.
CAB Holdings has been in business for 45 years, starting out as a print-to-post service for customers in the retail, municipal, commercial and financial sectors. The collapse of the Post Office and significantly reduced demand for this service saw the company pivot from a transactional print strategy to an agile, digitally-driven PoD model.
“We assessed the trends in the industry and used the insights to build new revenue streams using the available technology in the market,” says Johan Kriek, executive at CAB Holdings. “The inkjet market has given us the ability to run our printing at lower volumes, but still deliver the output our customers expect. Five to 10 years ago, you could only buy high-end, high-volume inkjet printers that needed a 10-20 million run to run cost-effectively, but this has changed.”
AI and ML
Inkjet printers, according to research, have seen such significant advancements in technology that their output, flexibility and quality make them the printer of choice across various fields. Recent breakthroughs in print head, nozzle, ink and design have transformed the speed and quality of printing, as well as the costs. The global inkjet market is valued at $109.73 billion as of 2024 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 8.4%, a growth not only driven by their evolving functionalities, but by the move towards PoD.
The latter is playing no small role in the massively growing self-publishing industry. Globally, this market is valued at $1.25 billion and PoD has made it affordable for publishing companies, and self-publishing authors, to print and sell their books direct to market. The Gitnux 2024 report found that the book segment of PoD is anticipated to see the fastest growth at a CAGR of 28.1%. South Africa isn’t lagging here – coming in sixth after the Netherlands, Chile, New Zealand, Mexico and the Philippines. South Africa saw a 71% sales growth using PoD in 2023, according to PublishDrive.
“PoD opens up new business revenue streams and allows for smaller businesses to compete with the bigger people,” says Greg Griffith, product marketing team lead at Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa. “It allows for short run printing, book of one printing and other forms of printing that originally companies had to turn away because of the cost.”
“Flyers on-demand, manuals, brochures, small and saddle-stitch booklets, training materials, business cards – these we can all now print-on-demand at any volume, something our business wasn’t geared for three years ago.”
Johan Kriek, CAB Holdings
It’s exactly this sentiment that has driven CAB Holdings’ smart moves in the sector. “Flyers on-demand, manuals, brochures, small and saddle-stitch booklets, training materials, business cards – these we can all now print-on-demand at any volume, something our business wasn’t geared for three years ago,” says Kriek. “We have access to additional revenue streams and areno longer reliant on old-school approaches to printing.”
Digital is changing the shape of the sector, and how companies lean in to printing technology to reimagine their business models and capabilities. This is also felt in how companies approach the use of AI and machine learning (ML).
“We’ve been using AI for a long time in our processes and products – all of our devices have gone in that direction,” says Jolene Castelyn, marketing executive at Ricoh South Africa. “Businesses want the ability to improve productivity, reduce operational costs, and create smarter and more automated environments.”
AI is as useful for a print run as it is for a manufacturing company – it can predict when a printer needs maintenance and reduce the risk of downtime, it can enhance security by responding to threats in realtime, and it can identify inefficiencies and suggest cost-saving measures. ML algorithms can optimise printing workflows by analysing usage patterns and suggesting improvements. These technologies can also play a role in helping companies – printing manufacturers and users – better prioritise environmental and sustainability concerns. After all, some calculations have found that a print run of 20 000 copies for a 96-page colour brochure can create a carbon footprint of around 20 tonnes of CO2e. Printers that are environmentally sustainable can save on energy costs and smart refills on cartridges and recycling old cartridges can all combine to significantly reduce company expenditure and their impact on the planet.
Sustainability goals
Ricoh, Kyocera and Epson have environmental, social and governance (ESG) processes in place to mitigate and manage the impact of printing and printers on the planet. Ricoh has a programme called Greenline, launched locally almost two years ago, that drives the re-use of products; Epson has prioritised reducing waste and prioritising the use of greener solutions across its customer base. Says Thomas: “Corporate environments are becoming a lot more conscious of the solutions they’re purchasing and ensuring they align with their sustainability goals and requirements. They want more than cost-savings; they want waste reduction and to reduce their impact on the environment.”
The printing environment has changed over the past four years, and this is likely to continue as companies prioritise cost savings, simplicity, accessibility and solutions powered by intelligent technologies. PoD’s ubiquity will continue to create new and unexpected business opportunities for companies that have been invested in more traditional print services, and potentially create new markets for entrepreneurs with an eye for how this blend of digital and physical can support other sectors and industries.
As Kriek says: “We’ve adapted our business so we can benefit from the opportunities inherent in digital and our incremental approach to adopting new technologies allows us to give customers access to new and relevant solutions they need.”
* Article first published on brainstorm.itweb.co.za
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