Epson Ink Cartridge Sales Set To increase

Epson is currently top of the printer maker sales listing, with five of the top ten best selling inkjet printers of the summer.

The full results from market explore firm GfK were:

Printer Inkjet

1) Epson Stylus C48,

2) Epson Stylus Photo R220,

3) Lexmark Z735,

4) Epson Stylus D68,

5) Canon Pixma iP4200,

6) Epson Stylus D88,

7) Lexmark Z617,

8) Epson Picturemate 100,

9) Hp Deskjet 3940,

10) Hp Photosmart 8050

Three of these models, the Stylus D68,D88 and Stylus photo R220 use personel ink cartridges for each colour, allowing change of colours as they run out. personel cartridges for these models are ready for under £5 from the likes of Cartridge plan and specialist highstreet outlets. With Epson's continued success in restricting sales of compatible cartridges their position in the Uk market looks set to grow.

Canons' only entrant into the top 10 is positioned at 5, with the Pixma iP4200 which also uses personel ink cartridges and although these are more costly than Epson have the advantage of having a larger capacity.

Lexmark take the opposite tack with the Z735 printer at No.3, this printer uses only one cartridge, which is appropriately called No.1. This cartridge contains all the colours in the one unit, making change a easy but perhaps frequent occurrence as personel colour run out. This appears to be a fact which Lexmark seem to be aware of, as shown by the up-to-date introduction of a twin pack.

Hewlett Packard fills both slots 9 and 10 with their Deskjet 3940 and Photosmart 8050 printer respectively. Both of these printers utter the middle ground, using isolate black and colour cartridges, while a third isolate Photo cartridge is ready for the Photosmart printer.

The newest introductions from all these manufacturers have shown a similar trend with both Epson and Canon favouring personel colour cartridges which can be replaced singularly whenever required. Hewlett Packard has any way currently restricted this configuration to their higher priced Photosmart models, preferring to join Lexmark in providing the two/three cartridge set up for the bulk of their range.

Epson Ink Cartridge Sales Set To increase