Aftermarket Grabs Opportunities in Booming Russian Market

Russia, being one of the fastest growing markets in the world, is a fact not disputed by many. Its print consumables market is unique, and full of opportunities and potential.

According to Mr. Malinskiy Stanislav, General Manager of Business Inform expo, the printer consumables market in Russia can be divided into three categories: state organizations (35.8%), large companies (39.4%) and small companies (24.8%). What foreigners find amazing is that state organizations and large companies consume more than 70% of the total printer supplies market in Russia.

The six leading OEM brands—HP, 48.07%, Samsung, 18.34%, Xerox, 9.85%, Canon, 8.03%, Brother, 4.87%, and Kyocera, 4.61%—make up nearly 95% of the total monochrome cartridge market. And in the color cartridge segment, just four OEMs hold 92% of the market—HP, 64.10%, Xerox, 11.2%, Samsung, 8.84% and Epson, 6.98%. This places HP, Samsung and Xerox as the most popular cartridge brands in Russia.

Business Inform tracked the purchasing volumes of monochrome and color cartridges in both government and business. They found 67% of the sales of the 20 most popular cartridges are monochrome. Color laser cartridges make up only 5.6% of the total printing supplies volume.

Realizing government and large business place such a huge demand on supplies, some aftermarket companies, like Apex, have developed the “Retain the Large and Release the Small” strategy to establish a relationship with several big companies in Russia. On the other hand, Static Control, Katun, Integral and others have chosen to cooperate with leading Russian dealers/distributors in the region, such as TEKO. TEKO deals in original and compatible supplies for printers and photocopiers through their network of more than 1,000 dealers and service centers.

Note: Business Inform is a trade exhibition held in Moscow of Russia. Office machines, consumables, spare parts, modern office appliance, printers and other imaging products were displayed during May 21-23. The show has welcomed nearly 70 exhibitors from Russia, China, US, Japan, Germany, Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, Lithuania and Armenia.