Widespread adoption of Internet connectivity and mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops have changed the way people work. The workforce has become mobile and demand for connectivity on the go has increased. Along with availability of information on the go, anytime, and anywhere, the workforce also feels the need for printing facilities as and when required. Due to this shift in working needs, and increased penetration of digitization into people’s day-to-day personal as well as professional lives, mobile printing has become significantly relevant. Printer manufacturers have recognized this necessity and have developed mobile or portable printers, which are compact and lightweight.
Mobile printers come in various types such as thermal and inkjet, supporting both color and monochrome printing, as well as different print sizes such as 2”, 3”, 4”, and full page or A4 size. Such a wide range of availability of mobile printers help printer manufacturers cater to the specific needs of different industries and professionals.
Healthcare providers are increasingly investing in mobile printers. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) regulation, which requires hospitals to maintain the complete privacy and secrecy of patients and patients’ data, is boosting the mobile printers market. Mobile printers are the perfect solution to maintain a tightly controlled printing environment within the premises, which can be accessed only by doctors, nurses, and authorized hospital staff. This ensures complete secrecy around sensitive patient information. Similarly, insurance and other financial services need to deal with confidential client information. The insurance professionals make a lot of client visits and use tablets or smartphones as their primary work computers. At the time of transactions, it is extremely convenient for both sales professionals and the customers if a receipt can be printed then and there as an acknowledgement of the transaction. The availability of compact and lightweight mobile printers that can print full pages has become extremely useful for finance professionals and has helped in increasing the sales output and reducing the turnaround time drastically. Government officials, especially police and law and order professionals need to hand out printed documents to people. Often these contain court orders or documents of similar nature, and as a result government officials are increasingly dependent upon mobile printers.
Field services such as pest control, electricians, plumbers, and service and maintenance technicians are finding mobile printers extremely beneficial for their day-to-day business dealings. When visiting customer premises, field technicians need to provide an acknowledgement copy with details of the work done. Most times, these have to be handwritten, and this consumes a lot of the work time of the professionals onsite. In this scenario, a tablet connected to a mobile printer, which can print on the spot, makes the process faster and highly efficient. Online businesses such as e-commerce, online food delivery services, grocery delivery services, and logistics are also driving the mobile printers market due to the inherent need of printing receipts at the time of deliveries. The small sized 2”, 3”, and 4” receipt printers are useful whenever delivery personnel need to visit customers.
Mobile printer manufacturers are making considerable investments in R&D to improve the product features of mobile printer devices. High precision, better quality of print, high printing speed, compact size, lightweight devices, ruggedness, wireless connectivity via multiple protocols, and low cost of ownership are some critical and extremely desirable product features that end users are looking for in a mobile printer.
Mobile printers are also becoming more relevant for people’s personal needs. For example, in the case of photographs, which are a combination of the digital and physical worlds and are clicked on digital appliances, people still need the printed copies for personal satisfaction. Hence, individual buyers are looking for small mobile printers that are easy to use and occupy less space at home or office.
Although businesses and individuals are shifting to working on tablets or mobile phones from a desktop or laptop, they still need prints. As much as electronic devices and paperless workflows improve automation and reduce the need for paper, there are still events when physical copies of documents are required. Mobile printers are the perfect printing solution in the current world of professionals and people on the move looking for flexibility around their movements. The mobile printers market will see an increasing uptake in the coming years, as they are here to stay for a long time.
