Top products printers, scanners and consoles highlight line’s extended applications and portability.
Faced with mature technologies, China suppliers of POS accessories are introducing more tailor-made products to broaden lineups and reach a wider buyer base. Such models allow makers to penetrate the midrange and high-end categories, thereby leaving entry-level units to provide standard functions.
Efforts to strengthen customization capability emphasize features and external designs. This strategy enables companies to add value and ensure compatibility with existing POS systems without increasing prices substantially. It has also expanded the application field for enterprises, allowing them to cover the financial, logistics and medical spheres. Releases can now also be used indoors and on the go.
The selection from China includes thermal printers, bar-code scanners, keyboards, displays, cash drawers and kits. Total output this year is estimated at 6 million units. The first three categories are mainstream, accounting for 35, 30 and 10 percent of aggregate yield, respectively, and 30, 60 and 30 percent of exports per type.
POS accessories from China make up about 45 to 55 percent of the global volume, the share growing by 5 percent from 2009. Each variety, however, has its own market trend based on changing demands. Production of scanners, for instance, rose 5 to 10 percent as more units adopt bar-code reader-based solutions. Cash drawers, meanwhile, saw a 5 to 10 percent decrease with consumers turning to credit cards for handling purchases. Such differentiations are expected to become more obvious next year.
There are at least 100 suppliers of POS accessories in China. This pool of manufacturers has been steady since 2009, and is predicted to stay the same through 2012 amid continued demand for the line.
Overseas OEM contracts account for 75 percent of makers’ total output. The rest consists of OBM and ODM orders. Nearly 20 percent of SZZT Electronics Group’s PIN pads are for OBM. At Guangzhou Zonerich Computer Equipments Co. Ltd, two thermal printer models were developed this year for ODM clients. Most suppliers’ focus, however, is still on OEM business.
Products & prices
The widening selection in China constitutes thermal printers, bar-code scanners, keyboards, displays, cash drawers and kits.
Thermal printers: China suppliers manufacture both dot-matrix and thermal versions, with the latter dominating exports since 2007. Besides being priced 10 to 20 percent less than the first, such models are preferred for their speed, low noise and clear print.
Makers estimate POS printer exports will all be of the thermal kind in the next three years. Already, market penetration is nearly 90 percent. The majority of manufacturers offer low-end and midrange units, with a few turning out upscale variants for the industrial and biomedical fields.
Most thermal printers support only unidimensional bar codes. Among the few makers that have released types that read 2D images is Beijing Spirit Technology Development Co. Ltd. Its POS885 model is compatible with UPC-A/C, EAN-13/8, Code 39/93/128, ITF and Codebar for 1D and PDF417, QR Code and Data matrix systems for 2D. The effective printing width is 72mm and mean cycles between failures or MCBF rating, 60 million lines.
Nearly 85 percent of thermal printers are the traditional kind. The minority is classified as portable variants, one of four of which is wireless. Suppliers forecast output of compact designs will rise next year as demand for streamlined systems grows.
All low-end versions are conventional models with 70mm/s printing speed, 8 dots/mm resolution and 5 million lines MCBF. Midrange types, some of which are portable, support 150 to 200mm/s printing speed and up to 16 million lines MCBF.
Wireless portable releases are classified as upscale. These have a printing rate and MCBF rating of 250mm/s and 60 million lines.
The module accounts for nearly 30 percent of the thermal printer’s manufacturing costs. Suppliers source low-end ICs locally, and midrange and high-end chips from Epson, Fujitsu and Rohm. The other components include the plastic shells, hot printing headers and PCBs.
Prices have been generally stable, and are expected to remain the same in 2011.
Bar-code scanners: Lineups include CCD, laser and wireless models. The first type is categorized as low-end, and the second as midrange. Laser kinds have been replacing CCD units in the past three years, and now make up 60 percent of aggregate yield. Wireless configurations, which are regarded as upscale, currently account for 10 percent of turnout.
Both CCD and laser varieties use unidimensional scanning technology. Models that support 2D are not widely adopted as they are at least 30 percent more expensive than those able to read 1D bar codes. The few companies that develop such readers said the customizable nature affects prices, but quotes could go down as demand and supply rise.
Nearly 80 percent of China’s bar-code scanners are handheld devices. These are more popular than fix-mount types because they are 100 percent less expensive.
CCD units support DIN, PS/2, RS-232 and USB connection, 0.1mm resolution, 85mm bar-code width and up to 100mm operating range. Midrange laser scanners have a 10 to 420mm depth of field and reads at 78 scans/s in 10 to 520mm. Wireless models adopt 433MHz ISM, covering a distance of 300m. These boast 48 scans/s and a depth of field reaching 250mm.
The main components of a laser bar-code scanner are the resistor, capacitor, built-in decoder, oscillator, receiver and laser engine board. The last accounts for approximately 60 percent of costs. For wireless models, the chipset makes up 15 percent of the outlay.
Declining material spending is expected to push down prices by 5 to 10 percent in coming months.
POS keyboards: China suppliers produce two kinds of POS keyboards: regular and encryption. PC input device specialists are the typical manufacturers of the former, which make up 70 percent of all POS keyboards from the country. POS system vendors provide the latter, which are also known as PIN pad keyboards. Although there are no more than 20 companies that offer encryption consoles at present, output is expected to surpass those of regular keyboards in the next five years.
Encryption units are required to have related certification, including PCI, Visa and CE, as most are used in finance applications.
PIN pads are popular in developed regions, while regular models remain widely employed in emerging markets.
Low-end POS keyboards support a USB connection and usually have a 19-key layout.
Consoles classified as midrange have 168 master keys at the length of 8/16 bytes, each of which controls two working keys. They utilize an RS-232 interface.
Some midlevel and the majority of high-end units are equipped with a self-destruct program. The system installed in Fujian Landi Commercial Equipment Co. Ltd’s Star-758 model, for instance, is designed to activate in the event of tampering. It carries a PCI PED 1.3 certification, has a privacy shield and is easy to dismantle.
Upscale versions additionally have a magnetic card reader.
Encryption keyboards use an LED display and, more importantly, a chipset that accounts for nearly a third of the cost.
Suppliers typically source IC solutions from Dallas Semiconductor. Prices of regular models will remain stable in the months ahead, while those for PIN pads will decrease by 5 to 10 percent amid tightening competition. More on Thermal printer customization capability boosted…
