Imaging Industry Importers Meet in Chennai Discusses Critical Issues in the Present Scenario

“Aftermarket-imaging industry should wake up and take quick, effective decisions the alleviate the alarming situation otherwise things can turn disastrous soon” – Imaging Industry Importers Meet in Chennai

Recently, the Indian importers of imaging products held a general meeting in Chennai to discuss the challenges facing in the industry by importers, distributors, and partners due to the Covid pandemic, due to lockdowns and the restrictions in the movement of goods, and the increasing prices of imported goods & raw materials, all of which have resulted in the loss of revenues, rise in expenses, everyone experiencing shrink in margins and so on. Many importers attended the meet to discuss the burning issues and deliberated on the possible solutions. The main points discussed during the meeting included:

1. Due to the long lockdown, the collections suffered a lot resulting in slow-down in businesses;
2. ocean freight from China has increased 6 to 7 times compared to pre-COVID days
3. the transit time from China to India has gone up due to the Short of containers or vessels getting canceled because of very low booking this has affected the inventory plans negatively

4. USD value against INR keeps on increasing adding to the cost
5. Manufacturers increased the prices significantly and this pushed up the cost of compatible cartridges by 15-22%; the cost of plastic raw materials has gone up pushing up the costs of empty shells considerably;
6. during May-June 2021 there were low sales and unavoidable expenses like rent, salaries have eaten away the capital.
7. The main problem to our industry is the sudden announcement from chip manufacturers on the increase in prices. A steep increase is announced which is not anticipated
8. The recent implementation of Anti-Dumping duty on toner powder became the biggest setback to the industry due to this refillers suffered considerably.

All the above factors have adversely affected the aftermarket imaging players. The big question that remains is how to cover up the dent in revenues, why the importers and distributors could not increase the prices of compatible cartridges

The meeting focused on the above issues.

As per the import analysis, there was a close to a 50% decline in the imports of compatible imaging products compared to pre-COVID times. On the other hand, sales of OEM products have grown approximately 67% during the pandemic with growth in the laser segment at 27%.

It was time should wake up and take tough and effective decisions in time to survive and overcome the crisis before it was too late. Any delay in reaching effective decisions can lead to disaster.

Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Masood Khan, CEO, IMAGE STAR (Image King), shared, “Nowadays, the costs of the imported imaging raw materials and consumables have gone up, but the prices of the goods supplied by the aftermarket players in India had to be kept low due to the slow market conditions. This has pushed the consumables providers into a difficult corner. In the meeting, the main issue is how to maintain a reasonable MOP (Marketing Operating Price) so that distributors and partners could earn a decent margin and survive. Other issues discussed include how to deal with the payment delays in the market.

This forum needs more participants to create a strong and effective platform–all leading players in the industry should respond and make the imaging industry a profitable and growing industry.