Printing industry is surprisingly optimistic

This is all the more interesting because the questionnaire is essentially identical to that used in the first "Drupa Global Trends" report from February 2014. This allows developments and the most important key data in the global print industry - such as financial conditions, business climate, investment intentions or technologies used - to be shown in detail and trends identified.

"We were very surprised by the positive basic assessment of the expert panel. Both print service providers and the international supply industry gave a positive assessment of their company's current economic situation at the time of the survey in October 2014. Even more surprising, however, was the finding that the printing and supplier industries are looking to the future with a clearly positive assessment," says Werner Matthias Dornscheidt, Chairman of the Board of Management of Messe Düsseldorf, summarizing the key findings of the study. In response to the question "How do you assess the outlook for the coming twelve months?", 48 percent of the print service providers surveyed expected the economic situation to improve, and only seven percent expected it to worsen. The results are similarly positive for the global supply industry: 51 percent expect an improvement and only eight percent a deterioration.

The results for the individual parameters examined, on the other hand, are much more differentiated:

1. print service providers' sales continue to rise - but less markedly. 39 percent of print service providers report an increase in their sales, while only 22 percent report a decline. But this positive balance of 17 percent is far below the 27 percent in the first survey.

2. margins of print service providers continue to fall. Almost half (43 percent) of the print service providers surveyed reported falling margins; only 16 percent were able to increase them. Positive exceptions here are the North American and Middle Eastern markets, where 29 and 28 percent respectively reported an increase in margins.

3. digital printing is not (yet) a large-scale revenue generator. However fast the share of digital printing in the overall print technology mix continues to rise, most sales are still generated by conventional printing. Only ten percent of the print service providers surveyed generated more than 25 percent of their sales from digital printing in 2014 (2013: 7.9 percent).

4. print service providers do not rely on non-print services. Often recommended as a new area of business - but not yet arrived in reality: Only 27 percent of the print shops surveyed generate more than ten percent of their sales with non-print services (for example, asset management for customers, database maintenance, etc.).

A preliminary conclusion of the second "Drupa Global Trends" report is quite positive - even if individual parameters imply a negative trend. This optimism is supported by the investment plans indicated by both print service providers and suppliers. After all, only a forward-looking development strategy can guarantee the competitiveness and thus the future of the company.

More than 1'100 international decision-makers in the international printing industry and its supplier industry answered the extensive questionnaire in October 2014. As with the first "Drupa Global Trends" Report and the first "Drupa Global Insights" Report, the independent market research companies Wissler & Partner (Switzerland) and Printfuture (UK) competently evaluated and prepared the results. At the end of March, the Executive Summary will be available free of charge in seven languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Russian) as well as the complete version including the figures volume in English at a price of 249.00 euros online at Drupa.com available for download.