Printers Investing Less In Scanners, Say Data

Among print businesses, planned investment in color scanners has been slowly declining. The high point was seen in Spring 1999, when 15% of printers had planned to buy a scanner. This percentage has dipped to 10% in the most recent TrendWatch Printing survey (Spring 2001).

Prepress service providers (formerly service bureaus and separators) had traditionally comprised the biggest market for color scanners, but as those devices have become more affordable for end users, there is little point in offering desktop scans as a service. Quick printers (at 17% in Spring 2001) are now the largest of the printing markets for desktop color scanners, likely so they can provide a full complement of prepress, press, and postpress services.

But at the same time that scanners have been declining as an investment, popularity in digital cameras has been rising. Over the same period of time, planned investment in digital cameras for production work has risen from 10% in Spring 1999 to 12% in Spring 2001—not a huge increase, but telling nonetheless.

Again, prepress service providers and quick printers are the big consumers in this market space. The sweet spot for digital cameras falls in the under-$1,000 and $1,001-to-$5,000 ranges, which include the lower-end megapixel point-and-shoots as well as some of the higher-quality prosumer SLR digital cameras.