Something that didn’t make it into the official transcript of yesterday’s earnings call with Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman was her enthusiasm for HP’s recently rolled out “Instant Ink” program. Instant Ink is HP’s effort to get people to subscribe to printer ink, thus locking consumers into making a purchase every month by default. Printing is still 22% of HP’s revenue, and Whitman has said that the company needs to increase revenue in this area.
Something that didn’t make it into the official transcript of yesterday’s earnings call with Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman was her enthusiasm for HP $HPQ’s recently rolled out “Instant Ink” program. Instant Ink is HP’s effort to get people to subscribe to printer ink, thus locking consumers into making a purchase every month by default. Printing is still 22% of HP’s revenue, and Whitman has said that the company needs to increase revenue in this area.
Instant Ink requires that users invest a lot of trust in
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During the call Whitman also highlighted HP’s “Ink Advantage” program, which is HP’s way of re-branding its own line of ink cartridges, based on the idea that they last longer than HP’s previous ink cartridges. The program asserts that “HP printers perform better with Original HP Ink,” which is likely an attempt to cut into the substantial market for less expensive ink for HP printers.
The added convenience offered by Instant Ink may be enough to lure customers who care less about price. If HP can convince users that subscribing to official HP ink is worth that convenience, it might make a difference to the company’s bottom line. But the world is inching toward tablets and various versions of the paperless office. So in the end, the maneuver may merely allow HP to decline a little more slowly.
