In the Indian market, Connecticut-based Xerox would focus on low-end printing products — priced below Rs 10,000. For this, it would target homes, home offices and small enterprises.
Herve Tessler, president (developing markets operations) of Xerox, said, “Currently, Xerox has low single-digit market share in the category. We want to raise this to a high single-digit share in two years.”
With a share of about 45 per cent, Hewlett-Packard (HP) dominates the low-end printing products market in India. HP is followed by Canon, which has a market share of 25 per cent.
“We are also planning to introduce Indianised products in the low-end category. Localisation is very important in price-sensitive, volume-driven markets like India,” Tessler added.
Though India was one of the fastest-growing markets for Xerox, the company hadn’t been able to tap the country’s true potential yet, Tessler said, adding, “We have been present in India since 1983. But now is the time to crack the market.” Over the next few years, Xerox aims to grow 20-30 per cent in India, Tessler said. Currently, the company’s growth in India is less than 20 per cent. The company, which employs about 10,000 employees in India, expects to hire more people, depending on growth.
Services, which account for about 55 per cent of Xerox’s global revenue, contribute about 30 per cent to its revenue from India. “By 2014, we aim to get at least 50 per cent from our services business, and the rest from the technology business,” Tessler said. To boost its services business in India, the company was banking on its managed print services, a category growing 30-50 per cent, across sectors, he added. Xerox is holding discussions with the Centre, various state governments and courts for managed print services. “We don’t see this coming in within five years. But it would boost the services business in the future,” said Tessler.
In the high-end printing products segment in India, Xerox has a market share of about 50 per cent market share, while in the mid segment, it has a 12 per cent market share.
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The company also plans to tap Turkey and African nations as future growth markets, as sales in Europe in the past year were not as high as expected. “Both Turkey and the African continent are almost untapped. These hold huge potential for us. Sales in the US were satisfactory. In Europe, too, sales were hit. We are growing at a faster pace in developing markets,” Tessler said.
Currently, Brazil, Russia, India and Mexico are considered Xerox’s key developing markets. Its India operations provide services to neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal Bhutan.