With the global printer becoming saturated, Brother is expanding its presence in India, which it considers as a potential market and is looking to increase its share in the country’s laser printer market.
Last year the company had taken measures to improve its presence in India and the regional distribution structure that has not only helped it record a 40 percent growth in the last few months, but also helped expand the reseller base.
“Compared to the global printer market which has become saturated, India has tremendous potential as far as laser monochrome multi-function (MFP) and single-function printers are concerned. We plan to strengthen our reach in India to garner a 10 percent market share in the next 12 months,” said Toshikazu Koike, Director and President, Brother Industries.
Last year the company changed its distribution model from national to regional, which it claims has helped Brother boost its reach. “The new distribution structure has not only helped us record a growth of 40 percent in the last few months but also helped us expand base of resellers in a big way,” added Koike.
Presently, Brother has 110 regional distributors and 400 active resellers. The company is planning to increase the number of regional distributors to 200 and the base of active resellers to 750, over the next 12 months.
The company has also upped its marketing budget in the current fiscal. “We have doubled our market promotion budget in order to provide marketing and advertising support to our partners through in-shop branding, demo units as well as canopy programs for lead generation,” informed Koike.
With focus on the SMB segment, the company recently strengthened its product portfolio by launching a single-function monochrome laser printer priced at Rs 5,000, two multi-function mono lasers priced at Rs 9,090 and Rs 13,100 and a few color laser models priced below Rs 20,000.
Brother has also increased its post-sales footprint—from 120 to 146 covering 280 locations—in the last six months. Most of the RDs also double up as authorized service partners.
