Canon Inc. unveiled a new lineup of inkjet printers Tuesday for the all-important yearend season, with an emphasis on upgraded photo printing performance to lure the growing number of people who want to print snapshots at home.

The domestic home printer market, dominated by Canon and Seiko Epson Corp., is projected to post a strong increase this year, driven by growing popularity of multifunction printers that act as scanners and copiers. Canon expects the overall domestic market to grow 7 percent to 6 million units this year.

The company will introduce seven inkjet printers in early October with prices ranging from 20,000 yen to 50,000 yen. For this year's lineup, the company shifted its focus from single function to multifunction printers.

The new models can print photos both sharper and faster than preceding models thanks to a newly developed print head, it said.

Canon officials said that the rapid growth of digital cameras has fueled rising demand for photo printing at home. They estimate that 1.6 billion L-size photos were printed at home last year, and the number is projected reach 3.5 billion in 2008.

Growth of home printing is a welcome trend for printer makers, because photo printing consumes a lot of ink and paper, which account for the bulk of their profits.

Last week, Seiko Epson announced new models for the yearend season. Its lineup also claims top-notch photo printing performance, including automatic image processing.

Like Canon, Epson's new multifunction printers feature enhanced functions designed to scan and print photos taken by conventional film cameras.

Epson officials said they expect the proportion of multifunction printers to reach 60 percent of the total market during the yearend period.