Epson aims to increase revenues to P4B in 3 years

Digital imaging and printing leader Epson Philippines aims to increase – even double – its revenues to P4 billion in the next three to five years as the company aims its guns on a still largely untapped market – the corporate business segment.

At present, Philippine revenues have been increasing at an annual rate of nearly 10 percent, much higher than the industry and regional growth rates.

Ever since the Philippine office was established 10 years ago, Epson Philippines president Hideto Nakamura and Epson Singapore director for digital imaging group Junkichi Yoshida admitted that the focus has been on the customer segment.

 “We want to expand the corporate business segment for Epson in the Philippines. At present, the business is basically 50 percent consumer segment, 40 to 45 percent business, and the rest, the high end or niche markets. Balancing out to one-third consumer, a third for business, and another third for virtual commercial (which includes point-of-sale printers) would be ideal,” Nakamura and Yoshida told The STAR in an interview.

To strengthen Epson’s new objective of achieving a stronger presence in the corporate business market, the company has named former Sun Microsystems Phils. country head Eduardo Bonoan senior general manager and division head for sales and marketing. He will be in charge of business development in the consumer, corporate, and vertical business segments. Another new appointee is industry veteran Anna Maria Ferro as general manager and division head for customer service and human resources.

The new management reflects Epson Phils.’ rising regional importance for Japan-based and parent Seiko Epson Corp. The new positions were specifically created to support regional plans to aggressively grow Epson’s share of the fast-growing business IT peripherals market – a new direction that complements the company’s solid growth in the consumer sector.

It has been observed that the market for single-function printers (for printing only) has become saturated while that for multi-function printers (those that can also be used as fax, copiers, or scanners) is growing much faster.

“Epson already enjoys strong brand equity among consumers in the Philippines. We will work to expand our digital imaging leadership on the business and corporate level,” Bonoan said.

For his part, Yoshida says the Philippines is one of the very promising countries in terms of revenue growth in the region, growing by around 10 percent annually which he describes as “unusual.” This is because the industry has been growing at a slower pace of between three to five percent depending on the market while regional growth has been at five to six percent.

The move to balance the portfolio between the consumer, corporate, and vertical commercial is happening not only in the Philippines but worldwide.