Fuji Xerox Australian market share sinks after tough year

Fuji Xerox's Australian market share has sunk over the past 12 months following a tumultuous period that led to a major fraud investigation by its parent company.

The printing vendor remains the market leader across its core segments of A3 colour and monochrome multifunction devices, but data from analyst firm IDC shows its share has taken a serious hit, especially in black-and-white.

In overall units shipped, Fuji Xerox dropped from 33 percent in the second quarter of 2016 to 25.3 percent of the A3 market in Q2 2017, according to IDC data.

The big decline was in monochrome, where Fuji Xerox's share dropped from 34.9 percent to 21.3 percent over the same time period, while its colour share fell from 33 percent to 25.9 percent.

Multiple vendors have gobbled up share of the A3 mono market, with Konica Minolta, Toshiba and Canon all increasing their Q2 share by about four points year-on-year.

Ricoh actually overtook Fuji Xerox as the B&W market leader in the fourth quarter of 2016, though the roles reversed in the six months that followed.

However, Ricoh has faced its own issues with around 70 staff departures and more than 20 dealers dropped amid the sunsetting of its Lanier brand. The vendor's general managers of leasing, marketing and services all leaving the business all departed in May.

Fuji Xerox Australia this week announced the resignation of its head of sales, Garry Gray.
 

The sharpness of Fuji Xerox's decline over the past year looks worse because its B&W share had risen between the second quarters of 2015 and 2016, surging from 23.5 percent to 34.9 percent.

The rise and fall of market share can be read in light of information from a major investigation by parent company Fujifilm into Fuji Xerox in Australia and New Zealand.

Fujifilm said its subsidiary had a "sales at any cost" culture that led to commissions and bonus payments of "massive amounts" from 2011 onwards.

The investigation report provided detail on how top Australian and New Zealand executives regularly brought revenue forward to hit targets, repeatedly avoided recognising losses so red ink would not reach the bottom line and simply fabricated monthly accounting numbers then chalked up asset sales as revenue to cover up the missing millions.

The vendor has seen a mass exit of senior Australian staff and has also been temporarily barred from New Zealand government contracts.

Fuji Xerox declined to comment to CRN.