Kodak shakes up inkjet market

Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 06 Feb 2007 13:11 GMT

Eastman Kodak is hoping to break open the market for all-in-one inkjet printers and grab market share from the leader, HP, with a new line of printers that it believes will match others for quality while halving the cost.

According to the company, the Kodak Easyshare 5100, 5300 and 5500 AiO printers will retail from $149.99 to $155.99 (£76-£79). Ink cartridges will cost $9.99 (£5) for black and $14.99 (£7.50) for a five-ink colour cartridge.

Based on average printer use, the company estimates that for every $15 spent on colour ink and $10 spent on black ink, consumers can print the same number of pages at half the cost "of other consumer inkjet printers".

The printers will initially be sold in the US only, with availability from April this year. A UK launch is expected, but the company has not yet revealed a launch date or UK prices.

Organisations are constantly working on ways to reduce the cost of printing. In November, Toshiba came up with a novel idea for recycling printer paper. Toshiba's technique allowed the re-use of paper up to 500 times. Also in November, HP started legal action against a popular German company that manufactures DIY ink cartridges that retail significantly below HP's cost.

Antonio Perez, Kodak chairman and chief executive, said: "We are changing the rules in this industry to ensure that consumers can affordably print what they want, when they want, easily and at the high level of Kodak quality."