Canon Discusses Strong 2017 Growth, Future Plans During Press Event

By Bob Neubauer

Earlier this week in Hollywood, Fla., Canon brought together dozens of industry press and analysts for its annual One Canon Event, where they had the chance to talk with Canon executives, customers and partners, hear about upcoming Canon technology introductions and get an update on Canon's market growth.

Canon USA's Executive VP and GM Toyo Kuwamura started things off with overview of Canon’s past 12 months, which saw sales growth of 14.9% in the Americas. Both Canon USA's Business Imaging Solutions Group (BISG) and Canon Solutions America saw 1% revenue growth in 2017, with CSA equipment sales growing 4%.

While production (toner cut sheet) unit sales grew more than 7% last year, inkjet sales rose an impressive 24% in 2017.

Kuwamura also talked about the future MFP, which he said will be "super smart" and strongly connected to the cloud. It will keep up with advancements in artificial intelligence and be highly secure. Canon's imageRUNNER ADVANCE 2018 models will be game changers, he said.

"We had a phenomenal year," said Francis McMahon, executive VP of Production Print Solutions for Canon Solutions America.

Kuwamura was followed by Francis McMahon, who was recently promoted to executive VP of Production Print Solutions for Canon Solutions America.

"We had a phenomenal year," he began, and proceeded to reveal that Canon is No. 1 for total inkjet placements worldwide. He showed a pie chart that had Canon with 36% of worldwide inkjet placements through the third quarter of 2017. In just the U.S., that share jumped to 38%. Looking only at the Océ VarioPrint i300 sheetfed production inkjet press, sales grew 52% in 2017, while Oce ColorStream inkjet press sales rose 22%. So far, he said, 65 i300s have been installed, while more than 1300 ColorStream 6000s have been placed.

"Fifty three percent of all pages printed by our customers included color," McMahon said.

What's more, he added, total inkjet pages printed by Canon customers have now reached 138 billion.

He announced two new products for 2018: the Océ VarioPrint 6000 Titan Series and the Océ ProStream continuous-feed inkjet printer. A ProStream has already been installed at Darwill, in Chicago, and a second will be installed nearby on Feb. 26, he said. He also noted that Canon plans to unveil a 10-ft. version of the Colorado UVgel wide-format printer by the end of the year. So far, more than 200 Colorado 1640s have been installed, he said.

One of those customers, Pixelwerx, has been having great success since installing a 1640 in August. It has printed more than 84,000 sq. ft. so far. President and CEO Adam Carver said he was most impressed with the ink savings the 1640 brought, though its speed and labor savings have not disappointed.

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Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.