Commoditization and rapidly declining price points have barcode label printer vendors reassessing their products, positions, and partners. Market saturation and high penetration rates in key industries, longer life cycles, and the global economy are all impacting vendor performance. Growth is plateauing in the stationary thermal printer category, and rising regional and/or vertical-specific competition is adding more margin pressure on leading vendors. Portable printers are riding the ongoing mobility wave, with several market participants looking to capitalize on existing growth opportunities.
There is a need to extend presence beyond traditional vertical markets and application environments. For this, vendors must expand their product portfolios and make their printers available to the end-user community via strategic channel alliances. Price as the only competitive differentiator will not help build a sustainable business model. As such, continued investments in research and development initiatives, in order to align product development strategies with evolving user requirements and preferences, are critical to success.
VDC believes vendors need to take the following three-pronged approach to meet growth and profitability targets in today’s barcode printer hardware market:
- Focus on the negation of commoditization,
- Don’t let low hardware costs be your only growth strategy, and
- Participate in market or product line consolidation.
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