"This is the largest number of inkjet printers we've ever introduced at one time."
Lexmark VP Paul Johns. The focus of the new line up is on two categories where consumer demand has been growing...
"It's an amazing time in the printer industry. This is the first year that total number of printers sold in North America has not grown. So the industry is flat. But there's some dynamic segment shifts happening within the industry. Most significantly, the photo segment is just exploding. One hundred twenty percent year on year growth, it's now 20 percent of the market. All in ones, growing at one hundred and thirty percent are almost 40 percent of the market."
So Lexmark is out with three new photo printers and three all in ones that combine printers with scanners and faxing capability. All in one prices start at 99 dollars for the PrinTrio X1150 and go up to 250 dollars. On the photo side, the Z705 Photo Jetprinter is under 80 dollars. The 99 dollar P707 includes slots for printing pictures directly from digital camera memory cards. Lexmark, which now also makes printers being sold under the Dell brand name, makes most of its money, as do other printer makers, on replacement inkjet cartridges. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.