According to the Imaging Consumables Coalition (ICCE), the European grey market counts for over £250m of the total European supplies market, and since 2005, Samsung has seized over 5,000 items of grey consumables in Europe alone.
Samsung’s Regional Products Programme has been designed to combat counterfeiters and protect its partners’ businesses. However, this is just one of several initiatives which Samsung has started this year including programmes to secure the supply chain, introducing security labels, using unique serial numbers/barcodes, and taking a stricter approach to legal action against trademark infringers.
“We understand that the grey market is damaging dealer’s business, which is why Samsung is introducing these positive steps to protect our customers” says Paul Burborough, Consumables Marketing Manager for Samsung UK. “I feel very confident that by the end of the year our partners will see a dramatic difference and we will continue to work with them to find new ways of protecting original products.”