The construction of Epson’s new factory at its Hirooka office in Shiojiri, Japan, is finally complete. Epson says the new plant, known as Hirooka Office Building 9, will be the second production site for its PrecisionCore print chips, which the OEM currently manufactures at its Suwa Minami Plant in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Epson first announced
The Imaging Supplies Coalition (ISC) held its annual meeting on June 26, 2018, and has since announced the election of a new chairman of the board and three new officers. Founded in 1994, the ISC (www.isc-inc.org) isa non-profit organization of printer OEMs that fights illegal activities such as fraud and counterfeiting in the imaging supplies
From late 2016 to the present, Epson has filed a dozen patent-infringement lawsuits in the United States against online cartridge sellers that it accused of infringing its inkjet cartridge patents. While half of these lawsuits have been resolved, others are still ongoing. Earlier this year, Epson indicated it expected to see settlements or move for
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
On May 22, International Data Corporation (IDC) reported that in the first quarter of 2018 hardcopy peripheral (printer and MFP) shipments in India increased year-over-year for a third consecutive quarter, growing 8.5 percent to 885,826 units. The uptick followed a 19 percent year-over-year shipment increase in India in Q4 2017 (see “IDC Reports Strong Q4
On May 22, Epson America announced its new WorkForce Pro WF-C8000 family of A3 color business inkjets, which includes the WorkForce Pro WF-C8190 single-function inkjet printer and the WorkForce Pro WF-C8690 multifunction inkjet. The introduction is just the latest in a string of recent inkjet hardware introductions from Epson. In April, the company announced the
The Age of Amazon has wrought changes that are both beneficial and detrimental to consumers, other businesses, and communities. Plenty of articles have been devoted to the “Amazon problem,” whether that means the closing of retail stores and emptying malls and strip malls, the bankruptcies of once-major retail chains, the types of jobs lost and
On April 27, Seiko Epson reported its financial results for fiscal 2017, which ended on March 31, 2018. While Epson has positives to report in fiscal 2017, it was a disappointing year in some respects. The company managed to deliver revenue and business profit growth, but operating and net profit declined. Moreover, Epson’s results fell
On April 17, Epson America announced the newest model in its line of “cartridge-free EcoTank printers”: the WorkForce Pro ET-8700 EcoTank all-in-one. The ET-8700 is an A4 inkjet all-in-one, but whereas its siblings in the EcoTank line are aimed at consumers and small-office/home-office (SOHO) users, the ET-8700 is aimed at small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
