Having recorded a remarkable 60% growth in the sale of its bizhub production devices, Bidvest Group company, Konica Minolta South Africa (KMSA) has become a serious contender in the light production market.
KMSA copier division manager, Paul Symonds, says the recent InfoSource Spring 2007 survey shows KMSA grew its share of Segment 5 (90+ copies per minute) by 35% last year.
"Our bizhub devices are claiming space in places where print-on-demand has become a necessity, such as 'print for pay' businesses, back offices, reprographic departments and commercial printers.
"The production market is an exciting growth area for us. Two years ago, we were minor players in the segment and now we are placed second. With machines like the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 1050e and bizhub PRO 920, we intend to gain an even stronger foothold in the market," he says.
Symonds says the research and development efforts of Konica Minolta Business Technologies Japan have paid off. "Four years of thorough R&D has resulted in an exceptional bizhub production range that is geared to meet the growing demand for short-run print-on-demand applications," he says.
The bizhub production range is highly flexible, allowing it to meet the needs of every type of customer. Symonds says applications such as Perfect Binding on the bizhub PRO 1050e means that devices can produce high-quality bound and finished documents; an ideal finishing solution for institutions such as universities.
Historically, many corporates could not justify buying equipment because of the enormous costs involved. This meant they outsourced a significant amount of work.
Symonds says today light production devices are competitively priced and well within reach of most corporate organisations. "There are currently about 1 200 light production units in the SA market, a figure that I believe will increase dramatically over the next few years, due to their affordability and incredible flexibility," he says.
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