The market for laser printers, which is primarily geared toward business users, has been steadily growing, with worldwide sales of color printers reaching approximately 600,000 units in fiscal 2000. Advances in the speed and functionality of color laser printers are expected to lead to a large increase in the scale of this market, which is estimated at over 2 million units for fiscal 2004. It is to meet this large increase in demand for business-use printers that Minolta and Fujitsu decided to establish the joint venture. Specifically, the two companies plan to pool their respective technology resources to speed development of color printers using tandem print engines(*1), and, using their respective sales channels, make a full-fledged market entry in the spring of next year.
Up until now, Minolta and Fujitsu have each pursued independent business activities in the printer field. Minolta has leading edge technological capabilities in such areas as electrophotography, image processing, toners, and high performance optical heads, and it has a well established sales and distribution network concentrated in Europe and the U.S. Fujitsu, in turn, has excellent system control, controller development and circuit design technologies, as well as top-notch technological know-how behind its broad product line-up, which includes system printers. In addition, Fujitsu has especially strong sales channels in Japan.
The impetus behind the joint venture is the desire to combine the above-mentioned strengths of the two companies to increase the speed of product development efforts and expand sales and distribution channels. By so doing, the two companies aim to be among the global leaders in the field of tandem printers, which are expected to be the major segment of the color laser printer market.
Through this joint venture in the growing printer market, Minolta and Fujitsu intend to offer high-speed, high-quality products that are reasonably priced. Moreover, by vigorously promoting the development of this business, they aim to expand the use of color in business documents in offices.
SOURCE: COMPANY PRESS RELEASE
