Canon Anticipating Tremendous Growth by 2018

IPG joined dozens of industry journalists and analysts this week in Delray Beach, FL, to celebrate the second anniversary of Canon Solutions America (CSA) and learn more about the company's advancement plans. Canon executives gave updates on the company's progress, its upcoming inkjet products and its future growth expectations.

"We think we can grow our business 40 percent in the next three years," remarked Malkon Baboyian, executive vice president of CSA's Large Format Solutions (LFS) and Production Print Solutions (PPS) divisions. In 2014, he said, PPS revenue grew 6 percent over the previous year; in 2015, the company plans to continue that trend, he promised, by aggressively engaging new markets, such as book, packaging and commercial printing.

The company's much-anticipated Niagara cut-sheet inkjet printer, he noted, is set for general release in the third quarter, but has already been installed at T Systems, in Germany, which is part of the Deutsche Telekom group. Baboyian said he anticipates receiving three times the number of orders for the Niagara product than CSA will be able to deliver.

In other big news from the event this week, CSA announced the formation of a users group, named thINK, which will hold its first conference September 8-10, during Canon Expo in New York. Ten CSA customers comprise the steering committee, which began meeting in April of 2014 to shape the group’s direction and goals. It will focus on innovation, best practices and world-class education.

Wrapping up CSA's Anniversary Event on Wednesday morning was a visit to its Customer Experience Center (CEC) in Boca Raton, where visitors got a close look at numerous Canon technologies, and heard more about several soon-to-be-released devices. Though the Niagara was not physically installed at the CEC, officials revealed that one was on its way to Florida. Watch for more details in the March issue of IPG.