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

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The topic in the subject line is discussed in a new Quote Investigator
article located here:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2026/09/19/market-copiers/

[Begin acknowledgement]
Great thanks to Dave Wilton whose comment led QI to formulate this
question and perform this exploration. Wilton heard that the Battelle
Memorial Institute performed a study that projected a very low demand
for photocopiers.
[End acknowledgement]

Feedback welcome
Garson

On Sat, Sep 5, 2026 at 1:03 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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]

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