Growth in outdoor media advertising has boosted the large-format printer (LFP) market, says a Japanese printing firm.
"The overall LFP market in Thailand has remained flat in 2017, equal to the 900 million baht in value for 2016, due to economic sluggishness, so businesses have delayed investment in new machines," said Yungyong Muneeningkolthorn, general manager of Epson Thailand.
One replacement for LFPs is the market for indoor and transit media advertising and signage printing.
Of total ad spending -- valued at 26 billion baht -- outdoor media and indoor advertising in department stores, movie theatres and TV digital got a boost during the first quarter of this year, while other media such as digital advertising shrank.
"Users spend more time outside due to long commutes and traffic jams, and new transit routes help increase outdoor and indoor media advertising," Mr Yungyong said.
The general manager acknowledged the challenge from digital signage but noted that the pricing gap for digital signage is comparatively high -- in the millions of baht -- compared with LFP prices of 350,000-600,000.
In developed markets like Japan, Europe and the US, digital signage dominates indoor advertising, especially at airports, though printed signage still has a foothold.
"A study found that still-photo advertising is more easily taken in [by passersby] than the moving videos of digital signage," Mr Yungyong said, adding that Thailand is the largest signage market in Southeast Asia for Epson.
To capitalise on growth in the printed signage market, Epson offers a trade-in programme, buying back used machines from Chinese and other international brands.
A 2016 promotional campaign, which entailed 70% lower ink prices, helped Epson outpace its China competitors in Thailand, gaining a 31% market share in the third quarter last year.
To fulfil market demand, the company recently introduced the SureColor C-B9070, a twin-head printer with double printing speed.
The model comes with ink and a printing cost per page of 10 baht per square metre, which Epson touts as the cheapest price in today's market.
Epson aims to expand its LFP business by 15% this year, which the company said will be driven by the signage and textile markets, digital labs, computer-aided design and the computer-aided manufacturing sector.
The company hopes to increase its LFP market share from 20% last year to 22% in 2017.
Epson Japan plans to expand its print head manufacturing outside of Japan with an investment of US$200 million (6.7 billion baht) over the next two years.