$10,000 per gallon for ink!
Two weeks we posed the question, ”Just how much ink is in those little cartridges?”
I mentioned that Epson’s “standard capacity” R260 and R380 (T078 series) ink cartridges carry only 7.4 ml of ink. Epson’s Online Store charges $14.24 for those cartridges. That calculates to $1.92 per milliliter. Since there are 3,785 ml in a gallon, that would make this Epson’s most expensive ink, at over $7,267 per gallon!
But Michael McNamara, Popular Photography’s Executive Technology Editor, reports that the Magenta HP ink cartridge for its Photosmart 8200 series holds only 3.5 ml and costs around $9.99. That equates to $10,788 per gallon!
Since MIS Associates sells an “Epson equivalent” dye based ink for $85 per gallon (and even an Epson equivalent pigment based ink for $384 per gallon), one wonders if Inkjet printer manufacturers are making much more than the 75% profit margin Kodak claimed in their Feb. 6 news release. I think it’s a LOT more, and it’s no wonder they are very protective of their market shares. (HP holds a 41% share of the inkjet printer market, followed by Epson with 18%, Canon with 17%, Lexmark with 13%, and Dell with only 6%—as reported by USA Today.)
Posted by Royce Bair on 02/21 at 04:22 PM
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