LVoters who went to the polls on Saturday June 8 and Sunday June 9 realized it immediately: ballot papers were missing. Not those of Renaissance, of the National Rally or of France Insoumise, but of the defenders of animals, of pirates or of Esperanto. Of the 38 lists registered for these European elections, a good number failed to provide all the polling stations. The reason is simple, at 1 euro cent per ballot, supplying the 49 million registered people can become ruinous. With its budget of nearly 70,000 euros, the Pirate Party, for example, although one of the best known, can only finance the printing of six million ballots. Especially since below 3% of the vote, these expenses are not reimbursed by the State. The only solution is to ask your voters to print the ticket at home.
This is at least one decision which has brought some comfort to the hearts of printer and cartridge manufacturers, because, on this side, there is not much good news. The French electoral process is one of the last representatives of the paper civilization. From your pay slip to your train ticket, not to mention newspapers, dematerialization is gaining ground every day. And the king of printers, Hewlett-Packard (HP), world leader in the sector, is the first to recognize this.
During a speech at a conference organized by the financial company Bernstein on May 30, Enrique Lores, the boss of HP, explained that the number of printed pages had fallen by 20% since the Covid-19 pandemic and its confinements. The main explanation was teleworking, which forced employees to print at home, which they did sparingly.
Long term trend
This has direct consequences on sales of ink cartridges and printers. According to the analysis firm IDC, these fell by 17% in the first quarter of 2024, compared to the previous year, and even by 20% in Europe. The HP boss recognizes that this long-term trend will not be reversed, even if its strong market domination allows it to attenuate the fall (− 8% in the last quarter).
For a long time now, for cost and environmental reasons, companies have been reducing the volume of printing. Individuals have been following this path since administrations, transport and entertainment became accustomed to file transfers and scanning codes directly on the smartphone. This trend is all the more annoying for printer manufacturers as this profession has remained very lucrative for a long time due to the economic model invented by the blade razor manufacturer Gillette: the equipment (the razor, the printer) and we make up for it on consumables sold with very comfortable margins. This all comes to an end.
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