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Fuji Xerox focuses on low-end products in China for profit
Staff Reporter 2012-09-11 16:11 (GMT+8)



A model for a printer which takes paper of smaller dimensions and is more affordable. (Internet photo)

Fuji Xerox, xerographic and document-related products and services providers, will step up its R&D and sales operation of low-end products in China to meet the company's growth of 30% for the year, said Xu Zhenggang, chairman of Fuji Xerox China.

HP, Fuji Xerox and Canon have dominated the top three spots in the printer and photostat market in China. However, the sales of HP and Canon in the market have started decreasing.

The sales of Canon's office products dropped 5.8% year-on-year for the first half of the year. HP reported its imaging and printing business fell 3% between May and July.

Xu believed the company still can maintain rapid growth in China, adding that he expected the worst times of the country's economic troubles have passed and China has turned its focus to the domestic market due to low export in the European market. The country will create a similar scale for the printer and photostat market as that in Japan, Xu said.

Fuji Xerox said that the company only set up 28 direct sales offices in China so far and needed to cover more underlying big cities.

The company had an annual growth of 20% in sales from the second half of 2008 to 2011. The printer business for enterprises accounted for a large part of the company's total income at 29% of total revenue in 2011.

Tadahito Yamamoto, chairman of Fuji Xerox, said that the company has a high market share in the high-end products of large size paper but is lagging behind competitors in the low-end market. However, emerging countries such as China and South America have increased their demand for low-end products using paper with smaller dimensions, like printer and photostat with A4 paper, said the chairman.

The company could potentially reach a revenue of 100 billion yen (US$1.3 billion) in 2015 if it spreads its small-dimension paper to greater China, which would double its sales from 2010, said Xu.