Casio Computer Co and Alps Electric Co said each will boost production of color printers to meet growing demand from office and home users of multimedia personal computers. Casio Computer, which entered the printer market in July, will as early as October expand monthly output to 3,000 printers from 2,000 in response to demand for its $7,000 machine, capable of printing 12 pages a minute, from firms that use color hard copies in presentations. Casio expects its printer operation to account for 30% of total sales in fiscal 1996, estimated at $184m. Alps Electric will double its color printer capacity from just less than 500,000 to 1million in the year to March 1998. The firm says the printers, targeted mainly at the individual user, are priced at between $730 and $830.
