OKI Q2 Middle East sales buck market decline

The company's strong performance is highlighted by the EMEA A3 colour market where it saw sales growth of some 17% in the face of an overall decline of over 27%.

"Despite this tough economic situation and the low demand as businesses are reluctant to spend, we are glad to see OKI marking growth across all sectors. We strongly believe this is a direct result of Oki's stronger value proposition attracting customers looking more carefully at how they spend their money."

said John Ross, General Manager, Middle East, India, North East Africa, OKI printing solution.

Compared to other major players in the market, OKI EMEA has accomplished an outstanding performance in a market that declined across the board by 25% during the second quarter of 2009.
According to IDC figures, OKI was the only vendor to show an energetic growth by 27% in the falling A3 color laser segment in Q2 2009 across EMEA. Also in the mono laser sector, the company's sales grew by 17% in a market that shrank by 38%.

On a regional level, OKI Printing Solutions saw growth in some areas such as in the colour laser markets A4 and A3 (21-30 PPM) and weathered the economic crises pretty well where the losses of other players reached unprecedented figures of up to 50%. The mono Laser market across the Middle East and Africa in Q2 shrank by 42% while OKI's sales increased by 3% in Q2 2009.

Oki's sales growth in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE has been particularly strong in the face of market declines: the mono laser market targeting work groups in KSA experienced a dramatic decrease by 82%, with the UAE market dropping 85% in the UAE - OKI's Middle East sales are cited by IDC to have been boosted by 96% in this segment.

"The numbers reflected in the IDC report position us as the vendor of choice when times are tough - we believe that the downturn has forced companies to look closely at how they spend money, at what makes the most sense in terms of value for money and also total cost of ownership, including service, reliability and warranty. In that evaluation, Oki has clearly been winning customers in the Middle East." Said Ross.