Jino Carlo N. Alvarez, Epson Philippines assistant general manager, said that Epson could not afford to be lax once they have gained the majority of the printer market share. 'The market is unpredictable. Sometimes Epson's on top, sometimes HP. That's how the business goes so we're doing everything we can to maintain a presence in the market, like doing movie promotions and road shows,' said Alvarez.

The daily grind for coming up with ideas to gain the top spot in the market includes thinking up new promotions and new products. Just before 2005 came to a close, Epson unveiled four of its newest photo printing solutions, three of which are single function, and one is multifunction -- the Epson Stylus R230, Epson Stylus R250, Epson Stylus R350, and Epson Stylus RX530, respectively.

Epson's marketing campaign is also targeting to prod the sluggish market for printers. Alvarez noted that the growth in sales of printers is not at par with the growth in sales of other consumer electronics like mobile phones and MP3 players. The reason, specifically for Epson's business, said Alvarez, is that their distributor channels are reluctant to stock products because of the enforcement of the expanded value-added tax law.

'For consumers, the effect of e-vat is minimal. The distributor channels are the ones who are affected the most. E-vat puts almost an additional 3 percent in taxes for distributor channels, and if their input is greater than their output, it translates to loss,' said Alvarez.

To support their distributor channels, Epson is restructuring their product segments per channel. Alvarez said that Epson designated specific products to specific channels in order to ease out the burden of carrying all of Epson's products. 'We also want the channels to focus on selling specific products so that all of the products in the Epson line will be given attention.'