HP/SAMSUNG
PRINT
IT
RESELLER.UK
A ‘follower’
takes the lead
15
Setting the scene
Before interviewing Dr. KiHo Kim,
PITR
asked Paul Birkett about
Samsung’s recent performance.
He said: “Our market share is increasing
quickly. We are in double-digit growth in
Europe, and all of that revenue growth is
coming from our higher end products –
our A3 products and our higher end A4
products. It’s compensating for the planned
decline in our consumer business, because
nowadays people buy a printer and never
replace the cartridge, so profitability in that
market is questionable.
“We aim to offset the planned decline
in that market with growth in our B2B
platforms. We’ve had a huge swing in
profit as we move from consumer to higher
end B2B products. We are still establishing
ourselves there and have had a 4,000+%
increase in profit so far this year.
“Samsung entered the printer
market 20 years ago. It is now Number
2 worldwide in terms of units shipped,
but these are consumer products. They
are small A4 personal printers in segment
1 and 2. We really only entered the B2B
market with our A3 portfolio four years
ago. Since then, we have revised those
products three times – that’s the pace of
innovation. By 2020 we have an aspiration
to be Number One in printers overall,
and that requires a lot of work on our
B2B portfolio in order to catch the more
traditional players.
“To achieve this, we have to recruit
more dealers. We are under-distributed at
the moment, so having the ability to attract
more dealers is really important to us. We
are going to be investing heavily in our
partners over the coming years. We are not
just going after the traditional print and
copier dealer partners. We believe there’s
a whole market in the IT reseller channel
which is under-served at the moment by
printing. They provide printers, but they
don’t really do anything else with them.
We think there’s an opportunity with some
of the things we’ve been talking about (our
solutions platform and apps) to link into
the core business they operate.
“In the UK we have thousands of
registered dealers, but we have a small
number – significantly less than 100 – that
transact a majority of the business. That’s
where our focus has to be – how do we
enable those thousands to start selling
print? If we can do that, that’s where we’ll
get the step change in our market share
and growth.
“What do we have to offer partners?
Number 1, we hope our innovation is going
to be attractive. Number 2, we have a
universal partner programme called STEP,
and it’s the same programme for mobile
as it is for display as it is for print, with
tiered rebate mechanisms etc.. The final
piece of the puzzle that we were always
missing is our services programmes. We
lacked servicing capability for partners that
couldn’t do their own Samsung service and
that meant that only partners that were
willing to invest heavily in Samsung could
sell Samsung. With the new channel MPS
PrintIT Reseller
has asked experts from the UK industry for their take on
HP’s acquisition of Samsung’s print business and we will be publishing their/
your thoughts in the next issue. In the meantime, here are extracts from an
interview conducted at June’s Samsung European Partner Summit with Dr.
KiHo Kim, Executive Vice President of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd and Head
of the Printing Solutions Business, and Paul Birkett, Sales and Marketing
Director for the Samsung European Printing Business. In light of subsequent
events, some of their comments make interesting reading. And, of course, they
are still pertinent to the many people who sell and buy Samsung printers and
MFPs and will continue to do so whatever badge they carry.
offering all of that changes. Any partner can
sell any product and be confident that the
service is in place, with NCR as the service
partner. We thought it really important
to choose a service partner that did not
compete with any of the channel in terms
of resale. They are a pure service provider.”
The view from the top
Next,
PITR
spoke to Dr. KiHo Kim,
Executive Vice President of Samsung
Electronics Co., Ltd and Head of the
Printing Solutions Business.
PITR:
Is there still a good market in
print?
Dr. KiHo Kim:
Maybe not (laughs). I
think we should admit that. In the A3
copier market demand is steady. In the
A4 printer market demand has increased
in developing countries, but in developed
countries the market is shrinking. For
two reasons: one, the market for our A4
Segment 1 and 2 devices has moved from
SMBs to home users, and they don’t print;
and the second reason is the smartphone.
People just consume information on-
screen; they don’t print it that much.
For these reasons, the printing boiler
room of Segment 1 and 2 entry-level
A4 devices keeps decreasing. That’s
the biggest problem. HP, as you know,
created a printer business model where
the machine is not so expensive. They
don’t make money out of printer sales
and compensate for this with toner sales. I
recently investigated what was happening
in Segment 1 and 2 and more than 20%
of users have a monthly print volume
(MPV) of less than 40 pages. The initial
toner is enough for their whole period of
By 2020
we have an
aspiration to
be Number
One in
printers
overall, and
that requires
a lot of work
on our B2B
portfolio
Continued...
