[Ads-l] Quote Origin: World Market for Copiers Will Never Exceed 5, 000 Units

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Dave Wilton wrote:
> A variation on this that I heard in the 1980s (orally,
> so there is no written citation), is that it was the
>  Battelle Memorial Institute that did a study
> determining that there was a world market for
> only five photocopiers.

Intriguing topic, Dave. I found evidence that the market for
photocopiers was severely underestimated. Here are some citations.
Note, the Haloid Company evolved into the Xerox Corporation.

Date: 1971
Book Title: My Years with Xerox: The Billions Nobody Wanted
Author: John H. Dessauer
Chapter 3
Quote Page 89
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York

[Begin excerpt]
Haloid was still sponsoring a series of market surveys, for which it
retained reputable New York firms. One of them, after questioning vast
numbers of businessmen, reported that we could not look forward to
placing more than five thousand copiers in American offices! It
presented all sorts of evidence to bolster its dire warning. If its
estimate was accurate, there was no hope whatever of recovering our
investment in xerography. We might as well forget producing a copier
and accept our loss.
[End excerpt]

Date: 1993 Copyright
Book Title: Judgment Calls: High-Stakes Decisions in a Risky World
Author: John C. Mowen
Chapter 1: On the Nature of Judgment Calls
Quote Page 21
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York

[Begin excerpt]
The first commercial sales of a copier did not occur until 1951. In
1953, a research firm estimated that no more than five thousand
copiers would be placed in American offices. (But remember also that
in 1958 an IBM official estimated the world market for computers at
five.) As xerography sales began to grow exponentially, Haloid
realized that its business had changed. In 1958, the name of the
company was changed to XEROX ...
[End excerpt]

Date: 2002
Book Title: Competitor Targeting: Winning the Battle for Market and
Customer Share
Author: Ian H. Gordon
Chapter 2: The Competitive Imperative
Quote Page 57
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Canada Limited, Etobicoke, Ontario

[Begin excerpt]
Kodak ignored its neighbor and under its very nose emerged a major
corporation, which Haloid renamed as Xerox. Not only did Kodak miss
out but IBM made a similar mistake. In the late 1950s, a consulting
firm helped IBM to decide whether or not to acquire Xerox. It said
that the world market for copiers would never exceed 5,000 units.
[End excerpt]

Of course, the size of the markets for computers and photocopiers was
not fixed. It was dependent on the prices and capabilities of
individual models. The market size grew as prices fell and
capabilities increased.

Garson O'Toole

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