Key Trends in Today’s Office Inkjet Printing

HP Officejet Pro 8138

Once upon a time, laser technology was considered the gold standard for office printing. Since about 2010, however, inkjet printing has been making some significant gains, with OEMs such as Canon, Epson, and HP Inc. refining their inkjet models so that many now rival laser-based counterparts. 

In general, office inkjet offers advantages that include lower cost per page, smaller footprint, lower energy consumption, greater reliability (fewer moving parts), and high-capacity ink tanks that reduce cost per page and cartridge waste. OEMs have also been enhancing their office inkjet models with faster print speeds, remote monitoring and management solutions, mobile printing, and cloud connectivity. 

The key shifts in office inkjets include: 

• High-Capacity Ink Tanks: Users refill ink tanks themselves with low-cost bottles of ink, eliminating cartridge waste. The upfront acquisition price for these ink-tank models tends to be higher, but it’s made up by lower-cost supplies and lower cost per page. The more you print, the more you save.
• Laser Parity Speeds: Precision inkjet print heads are now delivering fast first-page out times and print speeds, matching laser counterparts in many cases.
• Eco-Friendly Operation: Low power draw and water-based, pigment-friendly formulations reduce overall office carbon footprints. Fusing toner to paper as with laser models consumes much more energy than ejecting ink droplets onto paper.
• Smart Automation: Integrated diagnostics and automated maintenance prevent clogged nozzles and minimize downtime. 

Inkjet Market Share

Laser technology continues to dominate the office MFP sector with about 60 to 70 percent of market share. For its part, inkjet commands nearly 49 percent of the overall global printer revenue across all combined home, small-to-medium business (SMB), and light production markets. 

Today, while enterprise and government sectors remain loyal to laser for high-volume monochrome workloads, ink tank technology is capturing entry-level corporate and hybrid office environments. 

More recently, IDC reported that U.S. laser MFP shipments declined sharply year-over-year in first-quarter 2026, while inkjet MFP shipments held up better than expected. In general, inkjet is experiencing growth (about 5.8 percent compound annual growth rate) in the decentralized, hybrid, and SMB segments, driven by adoption of  refillable ink tank models.

Market Share

The market-share leaders in office inkjet are Epson, Canon, and HP Inc. Epson recently overtook HP to become the global market leader in home and office inkjet shipments with roughly a 34 percent share. It achieved this by pioneering the high-capacity ink tank category and aggressively phasing out its entire office laser line to prioritize eco-friendly inkjet hardware. 

For its part, HP announced the discontinuation of its A3 and A4 PageWide office printing portfolio in July 2021. The company stated it would shift future office investments to its LaserJet line, though it keeps PageWide technoloy active for industrial and large-format commercial printing. It also maintains its Officejet inkjet line, which, however, is geared more for home and small offices, not large enterprises.

Canon, which together with HP accounts for over 42 percent of global laser and inlet shipments, has developed its popular refillable MegaTank refillable ink-tank portfolio, with the MegaTank Maxify line geared to office and the MegaTank Pixma line geared to home users.

Although a smaller player, Brother has also developed a popular inkjet line for home and small offices. Like Canon, HP, and Epson, it also offers ink subscription plans that help keep cost per page low.

Who’s no longer in office inkjet? That would be Xerox, which made a brief foray in the early 1990s, and Lexmark, which entered the inkjet in 1993 and exited in 2012. Eastman Kodak also made a brief foray in 2010. Interestingly, Ricoh began developing inkjet printing as far back as 1973, and launched its desktop GelJet inkjet printers in 2003. It’s since focused on inkjet printing for high-speed production printers.

In general, these remaining market leaders have focused on refillable ink tank models, otherwise known as continuous ink supply systems (CISS), which were  pioneered by Epson. Epson has its EcoTank models, Canon has its MegaTank models, and HP has its Smart Tank models. As noted, these tank models have higher upfront hardware costs, but much lower cost per page.

Summary

Overall, the office inkjet printer market remains highly competitive, low-margin, and heavily consolidated among a few dominant giants, Epson, Canon, and HP. 

Of course, inkjet is also suitable for a variety of other uses – label printing, graphics printing, production printing – that is vastly expanding applications for this technology far beyond the office. That said, we believe that with its ink-tank, reliability, and lower-energy advantages, inkjet will continue to maintain its place in the office for years to come.