On the road to recovery following worst year ever shows survey
2010 should see most players in the wide-format print sector bounce back to previous business levels following print's worst year ever according to a survey conducted by InfoTrends and Fespa.
217 companies (40.8% printers, 39% manufacturer/resellers, 20.2% other) responded to the survey, which was conducted in December to determine the impact of the economic slowdown across the sector. Over half (56.4%) said they thought 2009 was the worst ever year in the industry's history and 93.1% said they believed the economic situation had impacted upon wide-format business. But 72% said they thought wide-format would recover to previous levels in 2010 - though 27.5% thought it would take longer (up from the 11.6% that thought that when asked the same question last April).
Asked about changes in competitive situations, 65% said they had seen competitors go out of business or be consolidated, 60% reported that they are being price compared more frequently (by both new and existing customers), 43% said they have seen competitors moving into other markets (such as photo books and other imaging-oriented products), 33% have seen new competitors enter the wide-format market, and 22% reported seeing some customers taking wide-format printing in-house.?
To deal with the economic downturn 70% of the survey respondents indicated that they have employed some kind of innovative process or created some kind of innovative product in order to help them though the economic downturn. 61.5% added new products to their portfolio and 60.6% entered new business areas. 39.9 made changes in their sales strategies to boost business.
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