HP has launched a new initiative to try and claw back falling revenues in the printer space.
The company will now be offering a subscription-based paper delivery service for its Instant Ink subscribers as it looks for new revenue sources.
“We have been testing now the service of delivering paper to these customers, which is another key value proposition because if you print at home having to go buy paper [is] heavy, very painful, and we are going to be delivering that,” Enrique Lores, chief executive at HP said at the Cowan 50th Annual Technology, Media and Telecom Conference.
What’s behind the move?
The latest move is intended to replace some of the lost revenue that the printing giant, which traditionally earned high revenue from ink sales, has lost in the current hybrid working climate.
“The amount of printing in the office will be around 80% of what we were projecting it to be before the pandemic started,” Lores added.
HP has been pivoting to a more subscription-based model for years.
The hardware giant raised the prices of printers that were compatible with third party ink and supplies in 2020, and instead chose to push HP+, a cloud-based printing service which can include automatic deliveries of supplies for users.
Late in 2021, HP decided to end its popular “free ink for life” plan, which allowed its customers to print up to 15 pages per month, and also raised the price of the Instant Ink subscription service (potentially by up to 50% in some cases) in March 2022.
It’s unclear whether HP’s efforts to reinvent itself are paying dividends just yet, the company is “losing money with close to 25%” of its customers according to The Register’s reporting of the conference.
Like many other firms, the company has been impacted by the global issues that are impacting supply chains.
HP’s Inkjet printers and Laser printers are popular worldwide, and the firm has reportedly sacrificed around $1 billion in sales by pulling out of the Russian and Belarusian markets.
The future of the world of office printers may not be assured, however that didn’t stop legendary investor Warren Buffet from recently disclosing a substantial stake in the company, buying around 121 million shares, or 11% of the computing giant.
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