Hewlett-Packard India is firmly taking on the printer-ink refilling industry with a combination of easily available and cheap cartridges and an awareness campaign, detailing the negative effects of refilling.

According to Bharat Kharbanda, Country Category Manager, HP India, the refill industry has a nearly 30 per cent market share in both the ink and toner cartridge markets.

Moreover, that Hewlett-Packard does not encourage ‘refills’, which are mainly done by unorganised printer-ink stores, and claims that the practice damages both the cartridge and the printer and that the company makes its money mainly off the sale of ink and toner cartridges.

He says, that right now, only roughly half of their printers are compatible with the affordable cartridge and that from now on all the printers they introduce will be able to use this. They aim to take back lost sales and win back their market share from the refillers.

To say more, he says that they would be continuing with the same plan having the launch of affordable cartridges, starting at Rs. 499, two years ago has helped combat refilling. We’ve seen our market share rise from 38 to 47 per cent.

(AW:Samrat Biswas)