Designed for event planners, real estate agents, church administrators and salon owners, the HP 201A Magenta Toner Cartridge handles every red, pink and purple your printer produces. Magenta mixes with yellow to form red and orange, and with cyan to form purple. Skin tones in photos also depend on it heavily. When magenta runs low, reds turn brown, faces look greenish and brand colours drift. A wedding programme or property brochure printed that way looks cheap to the exact client you want to impress. Installing a fresh HP 201A Magenta Toner Cartridge restores true reds in under two minutes.

Where most Nairobi electronics shops stock only black toner, Mascom International keeps magenta, cyan and yellow 201A cartridges together on one shelf. Our team at Mascom International tracks a clear pattern: magenta sells fastest in the weeks before Easter, December weddings and school prize days. Users consistently report that a reserve magenta saves them a panicked Saturday search across town. Real estate agents covering Karen, Runda and Kileleshwa order spares ahead of open-house weekends. Pay-on-arrival delivery reaches Kisumu, Eldoret, Kakamega and every other county, so the HP 201A Magenta Toner Cartridge arrives before your event.

Low magenta is almost always the cause. Your printer builds red by layering magenta and yellow, so when magenta thins, yellow dominates and reds go brownish orange. Skin tones need a steady share of magenta too, which is why faces in printed photos drift towards green or grey. Printing the colour test page from the Reports menu shows the problem clearly. If the magenta band looks pale or streaky while the others stay solid, a fresh CF403A cartridge fixes it.

Roughly 700 to 1,000 double-sided programmes, depending on design. HP's rating is 1,400 pages at 5% coverage per colour, but programmes with red borders, floral artwork or couple photos use more. A typical 200-guest wedding therefore uses between a fifth and a quarter of one cartridge. Event planners handling three or four weddings a month in Naivasha, Nanyuki or Nairobi usually go through one magenta every six weeks during the December season.

For anyone printing more than about 30 colour pages a week, yes. Magenta toner costs about KSh 11.90 per page at rated coverage. Together with cyan and yellow, colour toner comes to roughly KSh 35.80 per page, plus a little black. Print shops in Nairobi CBD commonly charge KSh 50 to KSh 100 per colour A4 page. A real estate agent printing 400 flyers a month saves roughly KSh 5,000 to KSh 25,000 monthly by printing in-house, even after black toner.

The CF403A fits five HP models: Color LaserJet Pro M252n, M252dw, MFP M274n, MFP M277n and MFP M277dw. It will not fit the M251, M276, M254, M280 or M281, which use different cartridge families. The code is printed on the printer's supplies page and inside the front door. Send us a photo on WhatsApp if you are unsure, and our team confirms the match before any money changes hands.

Choose 201X if you print over 200 colour pages a month. HP rates the 201X magenta (CF403X) at about 2,300 pages against 1,400 for this 201A. Busy salons, churches and event studios usually save per page with the larger cartridge. Lighter users are better served by 201A because it costs less upfront and toner does not sit unused for many months. Both versions fit identical slots, so you can switch between them freely. Message us for current 201X stock.

It can. Non-HP magenta cartridges often trigger a "Non-HP Supply Installed" warning and stop showing accurate toner levels. Poorly sealed refills leak toner onto the transfer belt and fuser, producing pink smears across every page. Replacing those parts often costs more than the printer's remaining value. HP does not cover repairs caused by third-party supplies. The original CF403A from Mascom International prints consistent magenta from page one and keeps your warranty position intact.

Keep them sealed, flat and below 40°C, which is HP's upper storage limit. Offices on upper floors in Mombasa or Kisumu can exceed that near windows in the afternoon, so store spares inside a cupboard. Humidity up to 95% is tolerated while the foil bag stays closed. Once opened, install the cartridge within a few days. If a cartridge travelled in a hot car, let it cool indoors for an hour before fitting it.

The printer shows Ready within about 30 seconds and the magenta gauge jumps back to full. On the M252dw, M277n and M277dw, tap the Supplies icon on the 3-inch touchscreen to confirm. The M252n shows the same information through a printed supplies status page. A genuine CF403A reports as an original HP supply. If you see a supply error instead, reseat the cartridge firmly, then call our service desk for help.

On most setups, yes, but only if you tell the printer to. Open the Supplies Settings menu and choose to continue printing when a colour cartridge reaches its end-of-life point. Black text and grayscale pages will then keep flowing, while anything with colour prints with faded reds. This helps a church office finish its Sunday bulletin in black and white. Still, replacing magenta quickly matters, because running cartridges completely empty for weeks can affect colour balance once the new one goes in.

Three ways to order:

The cartridge comes with the 6-month Mascom warranty detailed above.

Event planners, salons and churches across Kenya depend on Mascom International for original HP supplies, accurate part codes and after-sales help from a real Nairobi CBD store.