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Ricoh suffers GelSprinter setback

Monday 23 October, 2006

Ricoh has experienced a bit of a set back in its progress in the printer world with the news that the launch of its new GelSprinter range in the UK has been delayed.

According to the company, this has been caused by excessive demand for the Ricoh printers in Japan, which has made the numbers produced insufficient to meet the consumers clamouring to get the new printers.

"The global production of the GelSprinters has been swallowed up by the Japanese domestic market; 10,000 GelSprinters were sold in the first month in Japan," said Paul Cheetham, director of dealer sales at Ricoh UK, to CRN.

"Ricoh is ramping up production in China to meet global demand, but at the moment we are queuing up with other countries for our supply. We are waiting until there are enough GelSprinters to meet demand."

The GelSprinter range of printers were designed to allow Ricoh to have a bigger impact on the low-end printer market, challenging the strong presence of Hewlett-Packard, but it is now believed December or January will be the likely date of the first GelSprinter delivery in the UK.

The potential 'challenge' is believed to be down to whether Ricoh can make it worth resellers' while to sell the printers, industry experts have suggested.

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Ricoh suffers GelSprinter setback

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