Issue #0431/4 - One of Hewlett-Packard’s new laser printer models, the 19ppm mono LaserJet 1160 has been launched with a CPP that is extraordinarily high at 3.74 pence. It is so high partly because cartridge yield is restricted to a standard 2,500 page cartridge.
Even the 14ppm LaserJet 1010/12/15 models only cost 2.85 pence per page when they were launched in 2001. Since that time, consumables pricing has fallen, such that the current CPP on those models is down to 2.17 pence. The CPP for the LaserJet 1160 is 31% higher than the starting point for the older and slower models and is 72% higher than the current figure!
LaserJet 1320Even worse, the CPP for the 17ppm LaserJet 1150 is currently 2.04 pence. At this level, the figure for the new 19ppm LaserJet 1160 is 83% higher than its immediate predecessor.
At least the 21ppm LaserJet 1320, which is based on the same engine as the LaserJet 1160, is duplex-ready and will accept a high capacity cartridge, yielding 6,000 pages. This gives a CPP of 2.85 pence, the same level as the starting CPP on the LaserJet 1010/12/15 three years ago but still unusually high against the competition.
In point of fact, either a ‘faux pas’ or an error on this month’s Hewlett-Packard price lists right across Europe, listed these new cartridges as being the subject of a price increase of just over 100% in the UK and just under 100% around most of the rest of the region. Although it was clearly an error that these percentage increase figures should have been shown (the cartridges are new), reading between the lines one could possibly suggest that the original thoughts on pricing these products would have put the CPP at about 1.87 pence and 1.42 pence respectively – levels that would fit very neatly into the general picture for personal office laser products. Other manufacturers (except Lexmark) have CPPs that fall between 1.3 pence and 2 pence for products in this general speed category.
If this is the case, it is our opinion that Hewlett-Packard’s error has been in uplifting the prices as opposed to the fact that it showed a non-existent percentage price increase for a new product. At 2.85 pence and 3.74 pence, these products are priced far too high in the market to even begin to represent the ‘competitive’ levels of pricing that Hewlett-Packard claims for its go-to-market strategy.
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