Canon’s global
showcase of technologies kicked off this year at the Jacob
Javit Center in New York. Besides New York City, Canon Expo
2010 will travel to Paris, Tokyo and Shanghai. The theme of
this year’s invi
tation-only
show was “We Speak Image” during which Canon took the
opportunity to remind over 8,000 attendees of all the products
and markets the Japanese technology company serves.
From an imaging standpoint, a lot has happened since Canon’s
last worldwide Expo event, which exhibits once every five
years. They launched their most significant upgrade ever to
their digital office products line with the imageRUNNER
ADVANCE copiers/printers as well as their heralded light
production imagePRESS VP product family. And although Canon
lost IKON, their largest office products distributor, to key
competitor Ricoh, they acquired production giant Océ to mark a
few of the more
significant
challenges Canon has worked through since the 2005 Expo.
The show officially kicked off their worldwide tour with a
passionate speech by Canon U.S.A. President and CEO Joe
Adachi. Adachi addressed the crowd, discussing the effects of
the economic difficulties seen across the globe the last
couple of years. Surprisingly, Canon seems to have risen to
the challenge and although revenue numbers were down from
their peak in 2008, they expect to be almost back to where
they were prior to the global market crisis.
According to data Adachi referenced from Gartner, Canon
monochrome copie
rs
nearly held more market share from January – July 2010 than
key competitors Xerox, Ricoh family group (Ricoh, Savin,
Lanier) and Konica Minolta combined. Canon also outpaced Xerox
and Konica Minolta in color copier placements during that
period.
Next, Canon U.S.A. Imaging Systems Group Vice President Sam
Yoshida addressed the crowd. Yoshida provided a business
update, new product announcements and a description of what we
were going to see at the Canon Expo.
As the market is beginning to recover from the dip in 2009,
Mr. Yoshida reinforced Canon’s success against key competitors
Ricoh, Konica Minolta and Xerox.
Referencing Gartner data, Canon confirmed what most of us
suspected; the market is shifting from A3 to A4 products.
Indeed, when comparing the first half of 2008 in the U.S.
market to the same period in 2010, A4 saw a relative unit
increase of 9%. Perhaps more
significant
was the shift to color, which saw a relative increase of 33%.
Canon is currently enjoying a cyclical advantage, as their
color A3 product line is the newest. Their timing could not
have been better as these product launches seem to have come
just as the market began to once again buy product. Canon also
referenced unit growth for imageRUNNER and imagePRESS products
of 30% comparing the first half of 2009 to the same period in
2010.
Mr. Yoshida then discussed some key metrics of Canon U.S.A.
mentioning that the first half of this year compared to the
same period in 2009 saw dealer and reseller revenue up 10% and
retail revenue up 9%. During this period Canon was awarded
the contract as sole supplier to FedEx Office. This is
significant because Xerox has traditionally provided this
client with light production color and monochrome printing
devices and it shows that very high volume commercial printers
have enough faith in Canon imagePRESS and imageRUNNER Pro
devices to choose them over Xerox’s Nuvera and DocuColor
products. It appears customers now believe that Canon has the
product mix to challenge their rival.
During this same period Océ became a Canon channel, which
should help offset
some
of the distribution pains Canon felt when competitor Ricoh
acquired IKON Office Solutions, Canon’s largest distributor.
Canon also accelerated the HP alliance and added more than 10
new authorized dealers in this span.
Canon will be rolling out
an upgrade to their successful imagePRESS VP product line with
the C7010VP (70 PPM), the C6010VP (60 PPM) and C6010 (60 PPM)
color digital presses. The new products offer more robust
finishing, improved airflow to the print engine and a new
lineup of servers from EFI and Creo. Canon will also be
filling in their imageRUNNER ADVANCE line with the C2020 (20
PPM) and C3030 (30 PPM) color MFPs. Canon is improving on
their A4 portfolio as they will roll out four new color and
black and white printers and MFPs, addressing what is arguably
a large hole in their current product line.
Arizona 550 XT
Although Canon had virtually all product groups on display at
this Expo, we focused on the imaging products. This was the
first public show we’ve attended where the Océ and Canon
products were under one roof. Seeing the massive Arizona 550
XT wide format printer, which can print onto clear plastic for
amazing back-lit marketing pieces, in the same room with the
imagePRESS C7010VP was a powerful statement. Canon called this
latest relationship “A New Force
in Printing” and it didn’t take long to figure out why they
feel this way.
Shifting to the
office, we saw the current and forthcoming printers and MFPs
as well as some very cool workflow applications designed
around Canon’s application development platform, MEAP.
Customers can set their MFP to print from the SharePoint cloud
as well as directly from Google Docs. The customer simply logs
into their account and all of their document folders will show
up on the screen. They select their document and print it.
There is no need to carry a computer, USB thumb drive or any
other storage device as customers are now able to easily
access their documents from anywhere in the world right from
the device.
prototype
A4 MFP
We saw a prototype monochrome A4 MFP that will be in the 50 -
60 PPM
range. This product will be sold through the dealer
channel and will be a very robust device when it launches,
probably in 2011.
In all, this was an impressive showing and Canon certainly
took the opportunity to flex their muscles. No other company
boasts such a full imaging product portfolio, ranging from $30
personal inkjet printers to presses that can cost millions
of
dollars and virtually everything in-between. Canon has evolved
a great deal since the last Expo event in 2005 and between the
products they’re showing and the distribution and technology
they’ve acquired, it appears Canon really is on pace to become
the global leader in print.
Andy Slawetsky
is President of Industry Analysts, Inc., a marketing and
management consulting firm for the office automation industry.
Much of the company’s research and testing results can be
viewed on their website
www.industryanalysts.com .
