Can you believe that a domestic inkjet printer sells only 200 different kinds of ink, and the same type original cartridge costs 150 dollars, and that two sets of cartridges buy a new printer? This is not an isolated phenomenon, but rather an international giant such as hewlett-packard, canon and epson, which monopolizes the global printing industry for more than 20 years. Through the “low-priced mainframe + day-priced materials” harvest trap, foreign capital giants lie on their backs for decades until chinese firms are strong: 26 billion dollars to buy the old american printer giant league, from breaking the chip barriers to self-researching the whole machine, taking 70 per cent of the global market share of printed materials, completely breaking up the foreign capital profit loop and making the ink price back to civilian prices
I. A black screen of windfalls: $200 printers with 150 ink cartridges and 20 years of foreign harvests worldwide
When you buy a printer, you think you can take it home with more than $200, but the real consumption is just beginning. In less than half a year, the cartridges ran out, went to the door shop and asked for the price, and instantaneous eyes: a single ink cartridge of $150 and a set of colour cartridges of $300-400, equivalent to the price of two printers. It is even more absurd that, at normal usage rates, at least two or three cartridges would need to be replaced a year, and that the cost of a year's materials would easily exceed the price of the printer itself, which is not consumption, and it is clear that a gold swallower is invited home。
This deformed business model, which stems from the well-designed “shaving knife plus blade” commercial prowess of foreign capital giants, relies on a combination of hewlett-packard, canon, epson, brothers and four businesses that control 87 per cent of the global printer market and lay harvest consumers worldwide for more than 20 years。
(i) low-priced mainframe flow, off-the-shelf targeting of users
Foreign capital has deliberately pushed the price of the printer's mainframe to a very low or even a loss on sale. One printer, at a cost of $500, is sold at a price of $299 for the purpose of attracting users to the pit at a low cost rather than using the mainframe. Consumers find it “cheap and easy” to pay, but from the moment they are paid, they are firmly tied to the giant “screw harvester”。
(ii) the ink is more expensive than the perfume because of the profitability of the material
Host losses and profits are financed by consumables. Data show that over 80 per cent of the profits of mega-printing operations, such as the hewlett-packard, are derived from the sale of consumables, and that the mouric ratio in cartridges remains at over 20 per cent annually, much higher than that of mainframe operations. Even more exaggerating is the fact that the price of the original ink is more expensive than perfume or even human blood and is called “liquid gold”. The average consumer, who spent enough money on an inkbox for a year to buy a new printer, was forced to accept it and had no choice。
(iii) the chip locks down the monopoly and the third-party consumables are blocked
In order to protect the windfall, the foreign capital moved its hands and feet on the cartridges: each of the original cartridges had an encrypted chip of the size of a fingernail cap, and a two-way authentication with the printer's main panel. As long as you have cheaper third-party compatible cartridges, the printer immediately makes a mistake, refuses to work and locks the machine. More than that, the giants force the retrofitting of the solids remotely and, overnight, all the compatible cartridges that could have been used are out of service, leaving consumers without a way to defend their rights。
With the triple route of “low-priced + sky-priced + chip-locked”, foreign capital giants form indissolved monopolistic chains, and global consumers are caught in wanton harvests. And the rise of chinese companies has brought to an end this windfall harvest that has lasted for more than 20 years。
China's counter-attack: 26 billion acquisitions + chip busts to break the foreign investment technology blockade
In the face of the monopolistic hegemony of the foreign capital giants, chinese firms did not compromise to recede, but instead chose to be positive. From the reverse development of the ink cartridges in the pearl sea small workshop, to the acquisition of us giants for 26 billion dollars to complete the technology panel, to the self-researching of chips and the domesticization of the entire industrial chain, the chinese printing industry has spent 30 years on a 50-year journey to foreign investment, tearing up the monopoly gap and boosting the global printing windfall。
(i) pearl sea break: from recycled rink to global ink consumption
The chinese printing industry's counter-attack began at pearl sea. In 1988, as a special economic zone, joohai welcomed the first group of producers of printed materials, one of which was ho liangmei of tienwei group, who built the country’s first printer belt manufacturing plant in an old factory of hundreds of square metres on the south-screen, opening up china’s own production of printed materials。
In the early stages of a business, in difficult conditions, without technology, equipment and patents, it can only be done by recycling original cartridges, refilling them and selling them to domestic users at low prices. However, foreign chip barriers were quickly encountered: ink-filled cartridges were installed, and direct error was not possible. The giants have also frequently launched “337 investigations” to crush chinese enterprises with a patented stick, in an attempt to completely drive out domestic production materials from the global market。
In the end, the pearl sea enterprise did not give up, but rather recognized the core: without the chip, it would always be a low-end alternative, always stuck to its neck. The pearlhead enterprise, represented by nathda, has created the eppac microelectronics, formed thousands of chip development teams, abandoned the “low cost imitation” shortcut and embarked on an autonomous research and development path. Engineers buy foreign printers, decipher machines to draw circuits, use microscopes to analyze lines, decipher encryption logic; giants upgrade algorithms, pearl sea follows the break overnight, and this “cat-rat game” lasts for more than a decade。
After 2010, the pearl sea enterprise finally managed the chip problem, with the self-developed compatible chip and the perfect fit for foreign printers at a price of one fifth or even one tenth of the original cartridge. Today, chuhai has gathered more than 700 print-substance enterprises, with more than 60,000 industrial workers, to build a “five-km supply chain circle”, a new consumption that takes only two weeks from design to volume, while similar products are developed for two months abroad. Globally, 70 per cent of cartridges, 30 per cent of selenium drums and 90 per cent of colour belts are from the pearl sea, which is a truly “world-printed mass”. By 2024, enterprises with high-end printing equipment and materials in the pearl sea had accumulated over 7,000 patent applications, representing more than 80 per cent of the country's total patents in this field。
(ii) the acquisition of snakes: 26 billion dollars to take down the league and short-term technology to repair the machine board
China’s companies have resolved the problem of the utilise chips, and chinese firms have found that the foreign capital is not only monopolizing the material, but also controlling the core technology of laser printer complexes, and that domestic firms can only make low-end inkjet printers. To break the monopoly once and for all, the whole machine must be taken down。
In 2016, nathda led the chinese consortium and carried out a worldwide wave of snake-eating elephants: us$ 3. 9 billion (about rmb 26 billion) to fully acquire the united states old printer giant league international. The league was born from ibm, a “old money aristocratic” in the printing industry, holding 10,000 high-end printing core patents, targeting high-end commercial markets such as banking, finance and medical care, with a strong technological base。
This acquisition was not a simple “discretion”, but a precise “technical bottom check”. Through their acquisition, chinese enterprises have been able to complete the technical panels of high-end laser printers overnight, directly inheriting the league's decades of technological build-up, including core technologies such as optical modules, selenium drum materials and solid cores. Based on its technological and pearl sea manufacturing capacity, the “bend map” of the national printer brand has now accumulated more than 20 million downloads of equipment, with extensive access to core procurement scenarios such as government, banks and hospitals。
More importantly, it achieves full autonomy and control from chips, selenium drums to software, hardware, completely addressing the information security risks of office printing and breaking foreign monopoly in high-end commercial printing. Today, not only is a mercedes printer more expensive than a foreign brand, but the price of consumables is even more expensive. A laser printer needs only $500-800, and compatible cartridges are as low as tens of dollars, thus freeing ordinary households and small and medium-sized enterprises from the daily cost of materials。
(iii) patents are hard: from passive to active advocacy, china standards move global
In the face of the rise of chinese enterprises, the foreign capital giants are panicking and frequently use proprietary weapons to crush them. In 2013-2017, the united states alone launched 37 “337 surveys” aimed specifically at chinese printing-material enterprises in an attempt to drive domestic products out of the united states market。
However, chinese enterprises are no longer small-generation factories. Nasda, tien wai, zhuang, etc. Have applied for more than 10,000 patents, and nasda alone has more than 6,200 patents, becoming the world’s few enterprises that have complete mastery of the core technologies of printers, consumables, and chips. In the face of the investigation, chinese enterprises no longer retreated, but instead responded positively, with hard patents, redesigned the chip architecture, bypassed foreign patent protection and won many cases。
Today, china not only produces the world's largest amount of fuel, but also achieves a leap from “china makes” to “china creates”. In 2024, pearl haeg was the first to sell universal print materials, with a cumulative sale of 168 million, accounting for 25 per cent of the global market share and the best-selling of more than 150 countries and territories worldwide. The material standards established by chinese enterprises have become a global standard that has completely reversed the passive situation, moving from being chased by the neck to being the rule-maker of the industry。
Iii. End of sharp gains: prices of waste materials are cut, consumers benefit, industrial patterns reshape
The strong rise of chinese enterprises has brought about a direct end to more than 20 years of hard-copy foreign investment, a complete reshaping of the global printing industry, with ordinary consumers becoming the largest beneficiaries。
(i) large jumps in the price of materials, from “day price” to “civilian price”
The original ink cartridges, which used to be $150, now cost only $30-50 for the pearl sea compatible cartr. The price dropped by 70-80 per cent; a set of colour cartridges dropped from $300 to $80-100, and the cost of consumables dropped from $1,000 to $200-300 a year. The foreign capital was forced to reduce prices by 30-50 per cent and no longer dared to increase prices。
(ii) the rise of domestically produced printers and the crushing of foreign brands
Printer brands in some countries, such as bento, rely on the advantages of the whole industry chain to introduce high value for money products: domestic ink-jet printers of $199-299 and laser printers of $499-799 are 30-50 per cent lower than foreign brands; consumables are cheaper, with a single beryllium drum costing only $50-80 and printing costs as low as a few cents per page to completely crush foreign brands. Today, domestic printers not only account for more than 70 per cent of the domestic market, but also export abroad in large numbers, competing positively with the hewlett-packard and quakers in global markets。
(iii) reshaping industrial patterns and breaking foreign monopoly
Once dominated by hewlett-packard, queen's power, and epstein's monopoly, it has now become a “foreign + domestic product” that goes hand in hand. The market share of the foreign capital giants has continued to decline, from 90 per cent to less than 50 per cent at its peak; and chinese enterprises, with their technological, price and capacity advantages, have continued to seize markets and become the central force in the global printing industry. More importantly, chinese enterprises no longer sell only hardware, instead introduce printing management services, pay for print sheets, maintain equipment and replace consumables by cloud remote control, turn a hammer into a long-term service and lead new industry developments。
Iv. Positive energy revelation: the path to the rise of china's intellectuals from the neck to the global lead
The backlash in the printing industry is only a microcosm of the rise of chinese manufacturing overcoming monopoly. From being subjected to foreign-owned card necks, to harvesting, to autonomous research and development, to acquisition breakthroughs, to global leadership, to rule-making, the chinese printing industry has for 30 years emerged from an autonomous, self-absorbed break-out path of innovation and self-empowerment, providing valuable inspiration to all chinese manufacturing firms。
(i) core technology cannot be bought but is based on autonomous research and development
The breakout in the printing industry proves that core technology cannot be bought, can not be bought, and can only be overcome by its own difficulties. In the face of the foreign-owned technology blockade, chinese enterprises have invested heavily in human and material research and development, even for more than a decade, to attack core technologies such as chips and machines. It is this insistence that has completely broken the monopoly and assumed the initiative of development。
(ii) industrial clusters are the bottom air, so the heat is the only way to fight giants
The success of the pearl sea printing industry depends on a well-developed industrial cluster. More than 700 enterprises, 60,000 industrial workers, 5 km supply chain circles, upstream and downstream enterprises are heating up, synergizing, reducing r & d and production costs and improving overall competitiveness. This cluster advantage has allowed chinese firms to have a bottom line against the monopoly pressure of foreign capital giants and to form an industrial ecology that is “one-size-fits-all” and “strengthened”。
(iii) ethnic enterprises are self-empowerment and can be stable in the first place far
From the pearl sea small workshop to the world’s leading industry, chinese printing companies have always been committed to the idea of “breaking a monopoly, fighting for the country, and benefiting consumers.” it does not speculate, it does not steal, it insists on technological innovation, it is of high quality, it gives back to consumers at high value, and it eventually wins market approval. This is the core driving force behind the rise of chinese intellectuals。
V. Conclusion: breaking the windfall, inclusive global, china's intellectual future is within reach
The era of $200 for printers and $150 for cartridges is over. It took 30 years for chinese companies to become leaders of the global printing industry, from being chased by the neck of a card, based on the hard power of autonomous innovation, the national spirit of self-empowerment, and the initial mission of the general public。
Today, price ink is over, civilian prices and quality products are mainstreamed, and global consumers are enjoying the dividends of china's intellectual engineering. But china’s printing industry will not stop, and in the future will continue its deep-farming technology, optimizing products, marching towards high-end office equipment, smart printing services, and building more chinese business cards like pearl sea fuel, and a map printing。
From printing materials to high-end manufacturing, from being under monopoly to global leadership, china’s intellectually constructed path to rise is a vivid microcosm of the great renaissance of the chinese nation. Convinced that, with the tireless efforts of countless ethnic enterprises, more and more industries will break foreign monopoly and become self-regulated, so that china's intellectuals can rise to the top of the world for the benefit of the entire world
