August 2023 printing shipments came in at $7.44 billion, up from July’s $7.04 billion. Whereas July has become the most sluggish month for shipments—pre-COVID, June had been the slow month—with August seeing the rebound and, as we half expected/half hoped, that was indeed the case. We’re just about even with August 2021 shipments, but still well below 2022, which is also not unexpected, given how much of a rebound from the COVID years 2022 was. We should (should) be in for two more months of gains before things slow down for the holidays.

January-to-August  shipments are at $58.11 billion, below last year’s $59.60 billion. At this stage, it’s probably unlikely we will exceed 2022 shipments, although exceeding 2021 and 2020 is not out of the realm of possibility.