Canon invests Rs 100cr in rental business

During its third event of the year held in New Delhi, Canon made a few major
announcements and launched a range of new products globally in the BIS and B2B
segments.

The vendor has invested Rs 100 crore in the B2B rental business and launched
Image Press 1135, a document software solution, which can be utilized in the
commercial printing segment. Canon has also introduced 80 Business Imaging
Products and has introduced Mono-Digital Production Printing Press in this
segment.

Kensaku Konishi, President and CEO, Canon India and Alok Bharadwaj, Senior VP, Canon India at the launch

Kensaku Konishi, President and CEO, Canon India shared, “Canon has done
intensive study and research of its potential growth among its probable users
before launching Image Press 1135, which is high-end and quiet expensive. After
the study, we found that there's an existing need of 100 such machines per year.
We understand that corporates will have many doubts initially, but we are sure
that these new introductions will be accepted widely in the industry.”

Canon will be selling Canon Image Press 1135 directly and there will be no
channel partner involvement initially, but Alok Bharadwaj, Senior VP, Canon
India expressed the possibility of involving channel partners at a later stage.
Canon is investing heavily on the marketing activities of this product. He
assured that the company will be completely taking care of the post-sales
services to its clients, providing them with training on how to use the machine
and utilizing its applications. There would also be a full-time engineer from
Canon to assist its clients. A team of 80 sales people in Direct Sales Business
division will be handling top 500 corporates and commercial print segments in
India.

The MRP of this product is Rs 44 lakh. Being an expensive product, Canon has
also provided the option of paying the amount in installments. The product is
also available on rental basis, hence it is fondly called as 'Opex-ing
Investments' by Canon. Bharadwaj shared that this leasing plan is designed to
assist the the companies to adopt latest document management technologies
without having to invest upfront.

Image Press 1135 is likely to print 135 pages per minute and can give one
lakh black and white prints a day. It can be used in printing manuals and docs,
transactional businesses, book production, and can also be used in applications
like large-scale bill printing. Canon is targeting segments like telecom,
publishing, BFSI and education as its potential buyers.

The company expects this rental business to contribute about 60 percent to
its enterprise B2B and B2C business. Canon hopes to increase its marketshare by
10 percent this year and 20 percent in 2010 through the launch of these
products.

Canon also announced that that even during slowdown, the company has attained
22 percent overall growth during Jan-Apr 2009. It claims to have generated
highest ever sales of Rs 70 crore in March 2009, with 34 percent growth only in
the month of April this year.