Chris de Beer | Regional Manager at Infosource
The African printing market showed signs of recovery from the pandemic in 2022 and 2023, but many of the after-effects linger as we move into 2024. Remote and hybrid work—and the drive towards digital transformation—continue to shape the market even as memories of COVID-19 lockdowns continue to fade.
While we forecast positive growth for many segments and territories across Africa, it is the performance of the South African market that casts a shadow across the continent’s document capture and printing markets. Eskom’s continued woes, with no end in sight for load shedding, continue to dampen the growth of South Africa’s economy.
This has a significant impact on continent-wide growth, since South Africa is one of the largest markets in Africa. Vendors, distributors and resellers are showing remarkable adaptability in the face of the challenges they face. Many, for example, are diversifying their portfolios with services and solutions that enable customers to continue to print with no to little interruption during power outages.
Adapting to shifting workspace trends
In the wider African market, a shift from mono printing to colour printing has spurred growth in demand for laser and inkjet printers. Colour printing will continue to grow in 2024. The shift from mono printing to colour for small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs), is predicted to intensify, which will contribute to even higher growth across the African continent.
With the pace of digitisation picking up in industries such as education, healthcare, legal, financial services, and logistics, multifunction printers and scanners will also experience strong sales. This category will pick up some slack for office automation vendors and resellers as paper volumes decline in the years ahead.
In general, while there are nuances between different countries and product categories, vendors have much to look forward to in 2024 and beyond. We expect to see a continued recovery from the lows of COVID, as well as an increase in vendor investment and activity as the industry looks towards Africa for growth.
Colour printing revolution
In the wider African market, a shift from mono printing to colour printing has spurred growth in demand for laser and inkjet printers. Colour printing will continue to grow in 2024. The shift from mono printing to colour for small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs), is predicted to intensify, which will contribute to even higher growth across the African continent.
With the pace of digitisation picking up in industries such as education, healthcare, legal, financial services, and logistics, multifunction printers and scanners will also experience strong sales. This category will pick up some slack for office automation vendors and resellers as paper volumes decline in the years ahead.
In general, while there are nuances between different countries and product categories, vendors have much to look forward to in 2024 and beyond. We expect to see a continued recovery from the lows of COVID, as well as an increase in vendor investment and activity as the industry looks towards Africa for growth.
About Infosource
Infosource, established in 1985, is a leading global analyst firm headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Its worldwide team of analysts covers the Consumer, Office & Production Printing, Large & Wide Format, Digital Color Press, Direct-to-Garment, Consumer Flatbed & Document Management Scanner as well as the Intelligent Capture Software and IDP markets.
Infosource carries out in-depth analysis and guidance involving hardware, software and solutions used to automate business processes involving unstructured and semi-structured business inputs, providing model-level data for multiple industries, and assisting clients in studying long-term market trends.
