Initial results from the second ‘Drupa Global Trends’ report are showing sustained recovery from the recession. Werner Matthias Dornscheidt, chairman of the Messe Düsseldorf Management Board summarised the key results: "The generally upbeat picture surprised us. Both the print service providers and the international supplier industry gave a positive evaluation of the economic situation of their own companies as at October 2014. Even more surprising, however, was that the print and supplier industry is heading into 2015 with a very positive outlook.”
The survey, conducted in October 2014, was largely identical to the first ‘Drupa Global Trends’ report from February 2014. In addition this year a full survey was conducted amongst industry suppliers for the first time for a balanced picture of the global print market.
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, and only 7% with 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 show a much more mixed picture:
- Sales for print service providers continue to rise – but are less pronounced. 39% of print service providers report an increase, whereas 22% show a drop in sales. This positive balance of 1% is well below the positive net balance of 27% from the first survey.
- The margins for print service providers continue to fall. Almost half (43%) of the print service providers surveyed report 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.
- Print service providers are not turning to services outside the print sector. Often recommended as a new business area – but not yet realised in practice: 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.).
At the end of March the Executive Summary will be available as a free download as well as the entire version incl. the full figures in English for 249.00 Euro at www.drupa.de.