AutoID & Data Capture Blog




Omnichannel Fulfillment and E-Commerce Will Drive Growth in Mobile Printer Market, According to VDC’s Latest Research

by Shahroze Husain | 06/05/2017

We recently published market estimates and forecasts as part of VDC’s 2017 coverage of the global market for Mobile Thermal Printers. The market grew nearly 2% from 2015 to 2016, per our research.

E-commerce fulfillment and retailers’ omnichannel initiatives are transforming supply chains and how they operate. Retail, Transportation & Logistics, and Commercial Services segments are the biggest adopters of mobile printing solutions, and will continue to be the main segments driving growth for the mobile printers market through the forecast period (2017-2021). Omnichannel and e-commerce related trends will drive market interest in and purchase of mobile printer products to support applications like cross-channel fulfillment, click-and-collect, online retailing, logistics services and inventory management. End users including postal/courier organizations, third-party logistics providers, as well as warehouse and DC operators are heavily investing in mobile investments to support the handling, tracking and transportation of the increasing number of online shopping shipments to consumers’ homes as well as SKUs as they travel across the supply chain.

Mobile printer adoption is expanding to support label and receipt printing needs both within and outside the four walls of the warehouse and distribution center (DC). Applications such as mPOS, shelf labeling, and receipt printing make use of mobile printers in the retail store. In addition, health care presents new opportunities for this product segment at the patient bedside and point-of-care for patient identification, barcode medication administration, pharmacy labels and blood sample/material management applications in labs and hospitals

The Americas is the biggest market for mobile printer solutions by global revenue share, accounting for 54% of global market revenues in 2016, driven by the e-commerce and omnichannel initiatives of organizations in North America. At the same time, the EMEA market remained relatively flat. That said, B2C e-commerce in Europe will drive mobile printer sales in the region, with e-commerce revenues growing from €216B Euros in 2016 to €250B Euros in 20171. Finally, Asia-Pacific continues on its stellar growth path in 2016, up 10% YoY. Both local and foreign vendors in APAC continue to benefit from strong year-over-year growth in the region as enterprises and SMBs aggressively adopt mobile solutions to support their workers’ every day workflows. However, challenges in the form of price competition, varying product requirements, and fragmented distribution will continue to make it a difficult environment in which to operate.

For more information on VDC’s Mobile Thermal Printers report and the research deliverables, view the 2017 AutoID & Data Capture Research Outline.

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1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/435918/revenue-e-commerce-europe/