We have attended the Print Outlook Conference for the last 7 of the 23 years that this NPES sponsored conference has discussed the economic conditions predicted to affect the printing industry the next year. We’re told that until the late 1980’s, there seemed to be a direct correlation between the growth of the economy and the health/growth of the printing industry. At that time, it began to change and last year the panelist uniformly predicted that future print growth would only be about half that of the GDP. Last year there was also a new message; “A rising tide will no longer raise all boats evenly.”

Industry numbers presented this year by the speakers clearly bore this out. There were many printers doing well in 2003 (Andrew Paparazzi, Vice President and Chief Economist of NAPL, indicated that 24% of printers saw at least a 5% increase in sales), but many more were not and there is a continuing trend toward reduction in the number of printing companies; some indicating that there were now no more than 25,000 firms in the marketplace.

For the last three years, according to Kip Smyth, VP of NPES, overall print sales are down about 2.5% per year. Frank Romano, Roger K. Fawcett Distinguished Professor, School of Media, RIT, indicated that 21% of traditional print has actually been lost over the last 4 years, although ancillary services grew and masked some of the effect. Compounding this further, equipment sales are down 6%, 11% and 10% over the same time period. Supplies sales have also continued their roughly 10% decline per year. That overall sales weren’t down more is attributed to growth in shorter run digital print segment.