As so often happens given the close relationship between Apex and its parent company Ninestar, one of Apex Microelectronics’ announcements about the availability of new chips was immediately followed by an announcement from Ninestar about the availability of finished cartridges employing those chips. Earlier this week, Apex announced that it is first to market with
The hardcopy peripherals market in Australia took a hard dive during the first quarter of 2018, according to International Data Corporation’s (IDC) “Asia Pacific Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker.” Laser and inkjet markets tumbled 8.6 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively, over the same period last year. IDC attributes the decline to falling sales of low-price brands,
On June 19, Ninestar’s chip arm, Apex Microelectronics, announced that it is first to market with non-OEM replacement chipsets for Brother’s TN-730, TN-760, and TN-770 toner cartridges. Brother debuted these toner cartridges in a new family of A4 monochrome laser printers and MFPs for small-office/home-office (SOHO) environments. While model numbers and the exact date of product
At the end of April and throughout May, printer and copier OEMs reported quarterly financial results for the three-month period ended on March 31, 2018. For all the Japanese OEMs, except Canon, this period was the fourth quarter and the end of their fiscal years. For Canon and Xerox, this period was the first quarter
On May 30, International Data Corporation (IDC) released an overview of the findings from its latest “Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker” for the first quarter of 2018. In the first quarter of 2018, worldwide shipments of hardcopy peripherals (printers, copiers, MFPs) grew year-over-year for the sixth consecutive quarter. IDC reported worldwide hardcopy peripheral shipments totaled
In 2017, Diversified Observation LLC and OpenPrint LLC, pair of related Texas-based patent trolls, filed patent-infringements lawsuits against a number of printer OEMs, including HP Inc., Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., OKI Data Americas, and Panasonic Corporation of America. Now, the two firms have filed litigation against two additional OEMs—Brother and Xerox. In other news,
On May 14, Brother International Corporation announced that it has expanded its personalized print services and solutions offerings for customers at midsize to large businesses. The OEM says its solutions portfolio now includes translation services powered by thebigword, Secure Print+ for increased document security, a custom user interface that allows greater flexibility to make modifications,
On May 9, Brother Industries, Ltd. reported its financial results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2017 ended on March 31, 2018. While some Japanese OEMs have been reporting mixed results in the year just ended, Brother joins Canon, which announced its year-end results in January (see “Canon Reports Turnaround in FY 2017
Apex Microelectronics, the aftermarket chip and component arm of Ninestar Corporation, recently announced an array of third-party chip solutions for the cartridges used in Brother, Canon, HP, and Samsung printers. Ninestar, which recently announced its fiscal 2017 results, reported that its Apex subsidiary had a good year, with profits up about 41 percent (see “Ninestar
On April 9, London-based IT market research firm CONTEXT reported that sales of printer hardware through distributors in Western Europe declined by 6 percent year-over-year early in the first quarter of 2018, continuing the slowdown that the firm noted in the fourth quarter of 2017 (see “CONTEXT Finds Strong A3 Business Inkjet Sales Slow Rate
