Second drupa Global Trends report reveals positives and negatives

The full report highlighting economic and operational trends in the worldwide printing indsutry will be available at the end of March. This year, a full survey was conducted amongst industry suppliers for the first time, ensuring a balanced picture of the global print market. Developments and important data – such as financial conditions, business climate, investment plans and technologies used, are given in detail while industry trends are revealed.
“The generally upbeat picture reported by the expert panel surprised us,” said Werner Dornscheidt, Chairman of the Messe Düsseldorf Management Board (pictured previously). “Both the print service providers and the international supplier industry gave a positive evaluation of the economic situation of their own companies as of October, 2014. Even more surprising, however, was that the print and supplier industry is heading into 2015 with a very positive outlook.”
The question “How do you see the outlook for the coming 12 months?” was answered by 48% of service providers surveyed with expectations of an improvement in their companies’ economic situation, while only 7% predicted a decline. The results from the worldwide supplier industry were similarly positive: 51% forecast an improvement and only 8% a decline. On the other hand, the results from individual performance measures surveyed showed a mixed picture:
• Sales for printers continue to rise – but are less pronounced. About 39% of print service providers reported an increase, whereas 22% showed a drop in sales. This positive balance of 17% is well below the positive net balance of 27% from the first drupa survey.
• Margins for printers continue to fall. Almost half (43%) of the print service providers surveyed reported falling margins, while just 16% succeeded in increasing margins. Positive exceptions here are the markets of North America and the Middle East, where 29% and 28% reported increased margins.
• Digital print is growing fast but is still a small percentage of turnover for most printers. As quickly as the share of digital printing in the overall print technology mix continues to rise, most turnover continues to be generated from traditional print. Only 10% of the print service providers surveyed achieved more than 25% of their 2014 sales in digital printing (this was 8% in 2013).
• Printers are not turning to services outside the print sector as many experts have recommended. Just 27% of the print providers surveyed achieved more than 10% of their sales with services outside the print sector (e.g. asset management for customers, updating databases, etc.).
In general, those surveyed feel positive – even if some measures are still showing negative trends. This general optimism is supported by the investment plans cited both by printers and supplier firms. More than 1,100 international decision-makers from the print industry and their suppliers responded to the comprehensive survey in October of 2014.