Just 17% Of Businesses Used Mobile Printing

Mobile printing is failing to strike a chord with businesses after a new survey revealed that less than a fifth have printed from a mobile device on a corporate printer.

Cortado, the enterprise mobility firm, found that 92 per cent of consumers want to be able to print using a smartphone or tablet and 73 per cent have already done so, however, just 17 per cent of business users have used a mobile device with a corporate printer.

One reason for this is the view in business circles that mobile printing doesn’t improve the current status quo and to this end 63 per cent of business users and IT managers think of mobile printing as an “unimportant option.”

This is the opposite of the consumer market where 65 per cent of consumers think that mobile printing is an improvement to the way that printing is carried out. Of the platforms available, Apple iOS users know and prefer to use AirPrint over logging onto a PC or Mac to print out documents whereas Android users showed far less loyalty to Google Cloud Print. It’s the same case among business users with AirPrint a “well known” solution.

Businesses are still wary of the security threat that printing can present and research by Quocirca released last month showed that 90 per cent of organisations have suffered at least one data breach due to unsecured printing. It means that convincing businesses to start trusting mobile printing, where more often than not personal devices will be used, is something that will take time.

Cortado’s survey covered some 200 consumers and 200 business users in two separate polls carried out in May that asked about requirements for and experience with printing using a mobile device.

Image Credit: Flickr (Listener42)