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Forecast Analysis: Print Hardware, Software
and Services, Worldwide
Published: 16 August 2019
ID: G00386946
Analyst(s): Lai-ling Lam
Enterprise print spending is expected to decline at a five-year CAGR of
2.8% through 2023. MPS will continue to lead spending growth with a
CAGR of 4.7% and contributing 16% of total spending by 2023.
Forecast Assumptions
■
Through 2023, 17% of business printing devices reaching their end of life will not be replaced
by another printing device as enterprises rightsize their printing fleets.
■
By 2023, 60% of print software vendors will shift their business model from traditional license
and maintenance models to a subscription-based approach for both on-premises and cloudbased software.
■
Through 2023, printer providers’ sales strategy will drive profit stability and avoid competition
on hardware prices.
Market Impacts
■
Shipments of printers, copiers and MFPs to the professional segment will decline by a five-year
CAGR of 1.8%, from 67 million units in 2018 to 61 million units in 2023.
■
By 2023, the print software market (stand-alone or bundled into MPS) will reach U.S. $1.9
billion, reflecting a growth rate of 6.6% CAGR. North America and Western Europe will
contribute a combined 74% of the total in 2023.
■
Price stability in hardware will improve the outlook for total enterprise print spending, but it will
still post a decline of 2.8% CAGR in current U.S. dollars.
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Notable Changes
The main changes since the last iteration of this forecast are to upgrade the end-user
spending of printers, copiers and MFPs as vendors shift to midlevel to high-end value
products and avoid hardware price competition. Document management outsourcing
spending was downgraded to decline over the course of the forecast period, reflecting
declining external printed communications and document processing as paper
workflows decrease.
For more details about the forecast methodology used to create “Forecast: Printers,
Copiers and MFP, Worldwide, 2Q19 Update” and “Forecast: Enterprise Print Spending,
Worldwide, 2017-2023, 2Q19 Update,” see “Market Definitions and Methodology:
Imaging and Printing Services.”
Forecast Data Summary
Figure 1 shows the 2018-through-2023 CAGR for enterprise print spending by major segments. The
bubbles show the relative size of market spending in each segment in 2023.
Table 1 summarizes the annual enterprise print spending by segment for this time period. Table 2
shows the combined shipments of printers, copiers and MFPs for home and enterprise segments
by output technologies for the forecast period.
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Figure 1. Enterprise Print Spending
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Table 1. Enterprise Print Spending by Segments, 2018-2023 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
CAGR (%)
2018-2023
Consumables
70,099
65,499
62,318
60,023
57,613
55,029
-4.7
Print Hardware
33,622
32,334
31,558
30,161
28,907
28,239
-3.4
103,722
97,833
93,876
90,185
86,520
83,268
-4.3
15,289
14,778
14,633
14,485
14,320
14,152
-1.5
2,829
2,664
2,500
2,296
2,117
1,933
-7.3
Implementation
246
226
189
143
120
88
-18.7
Infrastructure
Consulting
190
179
184
160
143
125
-8.0
15,151
15,595
16,392
17,483
18,425
19,071
4.7
97
121
148
179
252
267
22.4
33,801
33,563
34,047
34,745
35,377
35,636
1.1
Data Capture
Software
301
296
303
307
308
317
1.0
Other Print
Software
196
224
239
247
231
232
3.4
Print/Fleet
Management
Software
435
450
452
421
413
388
-2.3
933
971
994
975
951
936
0.1
138,456
132,366
128,916
125,905
122,849
119,841
-2.8
Segment 1
Segment 2
Print
Products
Print
Products
Total
Print
Services
Document
Management
Outsourcing
Hardware Support
Services
Managed Print
Services
Public Cloud Print
Services
Print
Services
Total
Print
Software
Print
Software
Total
Grand Total
CAGR = compound annual growth rate
Source: Gartner (August 2019)
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Table 2. Printer, Copier, MFP Forecast by Technology, Worldwide, 2018-2023
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
CAGR (%) 2018-2023
315
345
376
395
411
432
6.5
Page
32,694
32,387
32,032
31,508
30,714
30,368
-1.5
Serial Inkjet
57,765
55,921
55,050
53,804
52,983
51,839
-2.1
Total
90,774
88,652
87,458
85,708
84,108
82,639
-1.9
1,065
1,099
1,196
1,231
1,261
1,289
3.9
33,300
32,221
31,973
31,277
30,551
30,230
-1.9
6,156
5,816
5,622
5,477
5,342
5,162
-3.5
40,522
39,137
38,792
37,985
37,153
36,681
-2.0
Unit Shipments (Thousands)
Line Inkjet
End-User Spending (Current
U.S. Dollars)
Line Inkjet
Page
Serial Inkjet
Total
MFP = multifunction product
Source: Gartner (August 2019)
In this iteration, the shipments of printers, copiers and MFPs were adjusted downward to reach
83,000 units by 2023 with a five-year negative CAGR of 1.9%. The steeper shipment decline was
driven by longer life cycles and lower replacement rates in each renewal cycle. Vendors intensifying
focus on higher-value and higher-priced products resulted in smaller decline in end-user spending
of 2.0%, compared with 2.7% in the 1Q19 iteration.
Enterprise print spending, valued at almost $120 billion by 2023, is expected to decline at a slower
pace of a 2.8% CAGR through 2023, compared with the last iteration, supported by a stronger print
hardware spending outlook.
Document management outsourcing, which was earlier expected to reach $18.4 billion by 2023, is
now revised to reach $14.1 billion by 2023. The significant reduction stemmed from its poor
performance in 2018. The change in baseline, combined with slowing demand for external printed
communications and physical document processing, particularly in North America, drove the
downward revision to document management outsourcing.
The managed print services (MPS) outlook was slightly more upbeat compared with the last
iteration. The key change here was a higher representation from print software, which accounted for
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6% of the total MPS spending by 2023. Subscription-based pricing and cloud-delivered software
through apps are expected to drive demand for print software bundled into MPS.
Forecast Model Summary
Gartner’s forecast model on print reflects the view that print hardware must be forecast together
with other aspects of the print business, such as software and services. This will provide a holistic
view of the total cost of printing to enterprises.
With the market evolving from hardware to services and solutions, and the impact of each market
on the other, the model focus is on the interdependence of those markets and the impact on each
other. Print hardware will form the foundation of the forecast, leading to consumables, services and
software.
Figure 2 summarizes the market model for the print market forecasts, showing the forecast output,
forecast components, primary influencing factors and forecast assumptions. Further details will
follow in the next section, Influencing Factors and Assumptions.
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Figure 2. Print Hardware, Software and Services Forecast Market Model
Influencing Factors and Assumptions
Professional IT Strategies
Demand for business print devices and services is tied to IT budgets and business objectives.
Replacement cycle activity, new technology, cost optimization and the shift toward digitalization all
impact sales of print hardware, solutions and services into enterprises.
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Forecast Assumption
Through 2023, 17% of business printing devices reaching end of life will not be replaced by
another printing device in an organization.
With the decline in printing activities in businesses, we expect an increasing share of the installed
base being underutilized or made redundant. The pressing need to optimize printing spend will also
see enterprises conducting print fleet assessment so as to rightsize printing fleets by consolidating
their print devices. Thus, we expected a portion of the installed base will not be replaced at the end
of its refresh cycle. Bearing this in mind, we foresee the installed base to shrink in the future.
The rate of redundancy will depend very much on the optimal level of their installed base and the
direction of the companies in terms of digital workplace initiatives that reduce reliance on paperbased processes. The redundancy rate in mature markets will be much lower as the majority of the
midsize to high-level enterprises in mature countries have gone through several MPS cycles and
have their fleet rightsized at each cycle.
However, in the emerging markets, whereby the printing environment is highly unmanaged,
especially in the public sectors, the redundancy rate will be much higher once they move into the
consolidation and managed phrases.
Ninety percent of organizations with more than 1,000 employees, up from 80% in 2018, will
have most of their document workflow digitized in mature countries by 2023.
The transition to a digital workplace environment has seen the transformation of business
processes. Ways to communicate, distribute, store and manage documents, and process data have
to be transformed into an electronic format. These needs have driven demand for data capture and
other document management services such as inbound document processing, converting historical
documents into business applications, data scanning, and indexing and archiving, especially in
organizations that handle a large volume of documents.
However, there will be fewer growth opportunities for document management outsourcing in the
future as most business transactions and workloads are moved online. The expanding capabilities
of MPS services to include large-volume document management also contributed to fewer
outsourcing opportunities.
Software Design and Pricing
Software business models are a key way vendors seek to gain a competitive advantage within a
market. At any given time, there is likely to be a variety of business models being pursued by
different vendors. Innovation in areas such as licensing (for example, commercial versus SaaS) can
significantly impact the revenue that vendors receive, or can expect to receive, in the future.
Forecast Assumption
By 2023, 60% of print software vendors will have switched their business model from
traditional license and maintenance models to a subscription-based approach, for both onpremises and cloud-based solutions.
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The subscription model is becoming popular for the larger enterprise software market but less so in
the print software market, whereby more 90% of the software is still based on the license and
maintenance model.
However, we expect the trend here to move in the same direction as the overall software market as
more cloud-based print software emerges, which is expected to drive customer demand for the
SaaS model.
With a large proportion of the midsize enterprises being underserved by many print software
providers, the advantages of a subscription-based model would drive demand. These companies
are sensitive to total cost of ownership and the high cost of implementation of print management
solutions, which can drive up costs up by another 30% to 40%. This would be a strain on their
limited IT budget.
This would create a sizable market opportunity for cloud- and subscription-based offerings. As a
result, we expect to see print software providers creating multilevel cost-effective as-a-service price
packages and promoting subscription-based pricing as demand increases and competition
expands.
Vendor Business Models and Technology Roadmap
The print market is in a declining trend and is forecast to worsen in the future. Digital acceleration
trends will continue to define the future and evolution of print technologies. From the product
perspective, vendors are shifting from a low-margin-but-volume-based-products focus to midlevel
to high-value products that will generate better aftermarket revenue in solutions and services.
Intelligent MFPs with self-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities, security tools and cloud-based
solutions will support vendors with pockets of replacement sales and value-added solutions. The
MPS business model, which is the service-led approach of placing more hardware, is already
matured in developed markets, and is approaching maturity in developing and smaller midsize
markets.
Forecast Assumption
Through 2023, printer providers’ sales strategy will drive revenue sustainability and avoid
competition on hardware prices.
Amid declining printing demand, falling revenue and mounting operating costs, printer providers will
strive to reduce price competition as much as possible. Measures taken by print providers to
sustain businesses will include:
■
Shifting from no-margin, high-volume products to midlevel and high-end products that require
more support.
■
Expanding aggressively into enhanced services and solutions such as value-added MPS.
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■
Transitioning from a transactional to a contractual or subscription model, such as transitioning
from a hardware price and cost-per-page model to print as a service; e.g., packaged new
cloud-based MPS solutions into simple metered use offers.
■
Experimenting with innovative contractual models that can help customers improve business
outcome. Shift away from a pricing model based on cost per page to total cost of ownership
(TCO), such as outcome-based or profit sharing contractual terms.
■
Generating new revenue flow through the implementation of cloud workflow, support and
security apps on the MFPs.
Gartner Recommended Reading
Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
“Hype Cycle for Imaging and Print Services, 2019”
This document is published in the following Market Insights:
Computing Hardware Worldwide
Consumer Services Worldwide
Infrastructure Support Services Worldwide
Printing Hardware Worldwide
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