If there's one thing that inkjet printer owners know, it's that ink is expensive. I remember when comparison were made to ink being more expensive than a bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne, and that would still be the case today.

So, when Epson came out with its EcoTank range of printers that included two year's worth of ink in the box, this was definitely a genius move that competitors have since copied.

It was great for consumers who no longer needed to pay $100 or so for a bunch of cartridges every time they ran out of ink, and it had and continues having great environmental benefits too, dramatically reducing the number of plastic ink cartridges that get tossed into landfill, or improperly recycled.

To quantify this claim, Epson says it calculated the CO2 emissions savings "by comparing the cumulative number of ink bottles sold up to August 2020 with the number of ink cartridges required to print the same amount and converting them into a CO2 equivalent".

CO2 emissions "were calculated based on Epson’s evaluation conditions, which take into account the impacts from consumables materials and parts manufacturing. Actual CO2 emissions will vary depending on customer printer use".

Epson first launched its EcoTank high-capacity ink tank inkjet printers in October 2010, in Indonesia, and it then steadily expanded the territory over which EcoTank printers were sold, reaching 170 countries and regions by 2019.

Epson EcoTank ET-4700

Epson EcoTank ET-M3170

Epson tells us that by first establishing a presence in emerging nations and then making inroads into developed economies, it has seen its high-capacity ink tank models account for a growing percentage of the total inkjet market each year.

As a result, the company says it "continued to maintain the top share in the global high-capacity ink tank printer market for ten consecutive years", which is "in terms of the number of global high-capacity ink tank products sold from 2010 to August 2020" and with "top share in terms of the number of global ink tank products sold from 2010 to 2019", per IDC's Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker 2020 Q2.

So these are genuine achievements, and I am personally always telling people that if they want to buy an inkjet, that they really should consider paying a higher upfront cost for an EcoTank from Epson, or one of its competitors if they are so inclined, because in homes, offices and anywhere else a lot of printing is done, it just makes sense!

So, how has COVID-19 changed Epson in 2020?

The company says that "rapid changes in society touched off changes in the office and education printing environments during the 2020 fiscal year. Thus Epson’s goal in all segments is to continue to offer far lower printing costs than their competitors and unrivalled environmental performance to enable their customers to print without having to worry about printing costs and environmental impacts".

You can find more info on Epson EcoTank printers here.