Celebrating five years of growth, Lexmark International, one of the leading developers, manufactures and suppliers of printers, last week launched an extensive range of new network laser and colour inkjet printers, and print related products.
The new printers cover all market entry points from top of the range network laser printer through to colour inkjet printers and personal laser printers designed for use in the home.
Norbert Kiss, Lexmark's general manager for Greater China said: 'The past five years have been really successful for the company, especially in Asia. Lexmark achieved record revenues of US$2.2 billion last year. During this time our rang of Optra and colour printers have become very popular in Asia. With the launch of these new products, we expect the next five years to be equally successful.' Mr Kiss said that this new product launch showed that the company was keen on the local industry and market. It was necessary, he said, for AST to start pushing its products to the retail sectors in Hong Kong.
The company feels that in one year there have been many changes in the printer market, particularly in colour inkjet products.
Lexmark's new printers include additions to the Optra family, the Optra N, capable of printing pages up to A3 in size at 24 pages per minute (ppm) and offering connectivity for department and workgroup users. The Optra E, a low cost compact business laser printer offers true 600dpi and 6ppm. Existing members of the Optra family, the Opera Lxi, the Optra Lx, the Optra Rx and the Optra R have been upgraded to offer full 1200dpi output at speeds of up to 16ppm under the new Optra banner.
Tom Andrea, manager of colour network printers at Lexmark Worldwide said: 'the printer market has moved to two types; the price-oriented and the performance-capable market. The colour printer market has been growing, with quality on inkjet printers and the big change is the price drop.' Mr Andrea said that another change has been the operating system-based colour management to give ease of use for customers. The fastest growing market has been the home market.