According to Renzo Rusca, Samsung printer manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jamaica has a large and growing demand for printers and similar products which Samsung wishes to fill.

"Jamaica is the fourth largest market in the entire Caribbean and we have seen signs that it is growing," Rusca told the Observer.  "Printer users are shifting from single functional to multifunctional printers... we have a complete line-up of products we want to introduce by the middle of the year."

Rusca said that cost and quality will be the two main advantages that Samsung will bring to the printer market.  "Samsung is becoming a major player because of quality and pricing," said Rusca.  "Because these printers are targeted to smaller business we seek to lower costs to fulfill the needs of small businesses that want to be more productive and more cost efficient."

"We started manufacturing laser printers for other companies more than ten years ago.  Two years ago we launched our own brand and by the end of 2003 we received an outstanding award for complete line of products and most reliable printers from 'PC World'."

Samsung entered the Caribbean market last year and currently distributes to Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and locally - through Incomex.

An interesting feature of the industry, according to Rusca, is that the cost of purchasing and maintaining colour printers is closing in on that of 'black and white'.

"We are having tremendous success in selling our CLP500 printer [a colour lase printer], with this new machine we are almost reaching the cost of 'black and white'."  Rusca declared.

"I think in the next year we will see a complete shift from black and white to colour."

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20050501T020000-0500_79696_OBS_SAMSUNG_TARGETS_JAMAICA.asp