Gartner: Color Printer Shipments Drive Worldwide Market Growth

The number of printers shipped in 2005 rose to 21.4 million units from 18.1 million in 2004, Gartner Inc. said. The increase was driven by a 44.3 percent surge in color printers to 3.1 million units.

Shipments of monochrome printers, on the other hand, grew by about 15 percent to 18.4 million units.

The color printer market soared last year due to price cuts by vendors, Gartner said. The average selling price fell 21 percent. The monochrome printer market, on the other hand, was driven by the growth in small and midsize businesses and in the number of remote workers needing inexpensive printers.

Hewlett-Packard Co. held on to its lead position last year, accounting for 49 percent of all shipments. Rounding out the top five vendors were Samsung Electronics, 8.7 percent; Lexmark, 5.9 percent; Brother, 5.5 percent; and Canon, 5.4 percent.

Gartner defines a page printer as an output device that prints one page at a time. They include laser, light-emitting diodes and solid ink printers.