Remote work, small offices revive S.Korea's printer market

South Korea’s printer market has been recovering from a long slump as the rise of remote work and small or home offices has revived demand for devices to print, copy and scan documents.

Global printer manufacturers Hewlett-Packard, Fujifilm, Canon and Epson are in a tight race in South Korea, along with the local brand Sindoh Co.

According to the IDC research firm, the number of printers produced in or shipped to South Korea reached 1.87 million units in 2021.

The figure represented a slight increase from the previous year’s 1.78 million units and a second straight year of annual growth in the domestic printer market.

The country’s printer market had been shrinking until 2019, or before the pandemic struck, amid corporate digital transformation and environmental campaigns to reduce paper consumption.

South Korea is Asia’s third-largest printer market after China and Japan by sales.

 
In line with the growing demand, HP Printing Korea opened an R&D center in Pangyo Techno Valley, known as the Silicon Valley of Korea, in May this year.

With about 1,000 research workers, it will serve as a strategic R&D hub for HP’s global operations, said an official of the US company’s Korean unit.

The world’s largest home printer maker spent about $400 million to buy two buildings in South Korea: one for the R&D center and the other in a nearby city is used as its Korean headquarters. The two buildings are the only overseas property owned by the US printer giant.

HP Printing Korea was launched after HP acquired Samsung Electronics' printing business at the end of 2017.

Meanwhile, Epson is slated to roll out an upgraded home printer model around the end of this year. The upcoming inkjet printer employs Epson’s heat-free technology, which requires no heat to warm up and thus reduces power consumption.

This year, Fujifilm’s South Korean arm unveiled 10 types of printers and a new multifunction printer that can be used as a printer, copier, scanner or fax machine.

Write to Sung-Soo Bae at baebae@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.