Executive Summary

In 1994 and 1995, the market for office equipment in the UK showed fairly strong growth, after suffering a decline between 1989 and 1992. Key Note estimates that the overall market reached a value of £18.7bn in 1994 and £19.6bn in 1995.

The market is comprised of five distinct sectors as follows: computer hardware, including hardware maintenance and peripherals, hardware for networking and communications peripherals such as modems -- it does not include applications software; telecommunications equipment for end users, such as cellphones, fixed and cordless telephones, fax machines and answering machines, and capital equipment items (private and public exchanges, etc.); it also includes office furniture, photocopiers and other office equipment, including mailroom equipment, visual presentation products, binders and other document finishing machinery for office use, shredders, calculators, dictation systems and typewriters.

The price of many of the office equipment products has fallen as technology has advanced and as the market becomes increasingly competitive. Some sectors, therefore, have shown static or declining values, while growing in volume.

The market is affected by the growth of the small office/home office sector and the increase in mobile working, which affects the types of products in demand. Within larger companies, the use of computer networks is already well established and the trend is towards client-server computer architecture.

A current trend is the development of multifunction devices capable of carrying out the functions of fax machine, copier, printer and scanner. This type of machine is likely to appeal to the small office/home office and small business sector, where space and price are of great importance. Another development in the general merging of technologies is that many products, which were once considered separate from the computer market, such as answering machines, dictation machines and whiteboards, are developing into computer peripherals.

The overall market for office equipment is expected to continue to grow in current value terms to about 1998, although this is dependent on continued positive growth in the economy. After 1998, the market could flatten or decline in value.

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