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Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. said Thursday that it has formed an alliance with Chinese computer maker Legend Group Ltd. to supply its personal computer (PC) printers to Legend on an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) basis.
With the deal, Japan-based Konica Minolta will seek to boost its printer market share in China five-fold by the end of the next fiscal year ending March 2005, a company spokesman said.
“The printer market has become saturated globally, but China is an exception. In particular, the color printer market in China is growing rapidly, and we hope to cash in on that," the spokesman said.
Legend appears to favor Konica Minolta among potential Japanese tie-up firms due to Konica Minolta's product strength in color printers, the spokesman added.
Including products supplied under OEM agreement, Konica Minolta had a share of slightly less than 5 percent in China's laser printer market in the previous fiscal year (ended March). The printer maker aims to lift its market share to 7-8 percent by the end of this fiscal year and to 25 percent by the end of the next year, it said.
Under the agreement with Legend, Konica Minolta will supply a monochrome and a color model laser beam printer, both of which will be manufactured at its factory in Guangdong Province. The company will ship about 80,000 monochrome and 10,000 color printers to Legend over the next 1 1/2 to 2 years.
Konica Minolta also hopes to expand the alliance with Legend to include other models in the future, the spokesman said.
Legend now ranks second in the Chinese printer market after market leader Hewlett-Packard Co. (Dow Jones)
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