Lexington, KY - WhatTheyThink, the leading online media organization serving the printing and publishing industry, today announced the availability of their most current report titled “North American Monthly Printing Shipments, Issue #60.” This report is free to Premium Members of WhatTheyThink.

This report is available for immediate purchase for others at: http://store.whattheythink.com/monthly-u-s-printing-shipments

September 2010 commercial printing shipments were $7.58 billion, up $248 million (+3.4%) compared to 2009. Adjusting for inflation, shipments were up +2.2%. “This continues the consecutive gain in current dollar shipments for six months, a welcome change for commercial printers,” explained Dr. Joe Webb, director of WhatTheyThink's Economics and Research Center.

“Our industry is still in the midst of a significant media transition, but printers are adapting to the market by consolidating with other printers, offering new products, and other actions.” Dr. Webb advised caution. “It is still too early to tell if this is an effect of the elections. Many candidates did not initially have support of national parties in their primaries, and may have used print and new media because broadcast and cable were too expensive for them at that time. We won't have data for a few months to determine if there was a positive election effect, but it is a plausible idea. One factor we must consider, however, is that Canada's printers have also had an increase in shipments in the same period. We will be investigating this further as new data become available.”

Dr. Webb also stated that these shipment increases mean that it is likely that the industry will finish slightly ahead of 2009, and exceed his original forecasts. “The first quarter of 2010 was a disaster for printers, but since then volumes have increase to be almost equal to 2009 levels. While shipments are down significantly below 2008 levels, it seems we have some breathing room and many companies are showing profits again.”

The latest report includes a discussion of September's shipments, Canada's August shipments, and updated forecasts for the US industry to 2016. Dr. Webb's audio commentary also includes a discussion industry capacity since 1995, and how the industry has changed since 2008 and 2000.

The North American Monthly Printing Shipments Report contains both current and inflation-adjusted analysis of commercial printing and print services shipments, for the U.S. and Canada, and forecasts for 2009 through 2016. Forecasts are updated every month, and changes are discussed in the report, which is comprised of Adobe PDF, Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint files, and an MP3 file of audio commentary from Dr. Webb. The cost of the report is $50.00. Those purchasing the report can easily repurpose the charts and data in presentations, webinars, and other reports.

The report contains significant and proprietary analysis and by Dr. Webb and WhatTheyThink's Economics and Research Center. It is a top-level analysis of the U.S. commercial printing and trade services markets such as commercial offset, digital, and other printing processes, as well as prepress and postpress contained in the standard business classification NAICS 323.

http://store.whattheythink.com/monthly-u-s-printing-shipments

WhatTheyThink's Economics and Research Center contains a blend of free and premium content for graphic arts and publishing executives. It offers an online library of primary research reports, executive summaries of economic trends, and related industry columns, videos, podcasts and webinars.

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About WhatTheyThink

WhatTheyThink is the printing and publishing industry's leading online media organization; offering a wide range of publications delivering unbiased, real-time market intelligence, industry news, economic and trend analysis, peer-to-peer communication, and special reports on emerging technology and critical events. Serving a membership base of more than 50,000, WhatTheyThink also hosts webinars and live events as well as providing content through a syndication program, which delivers content directly to related websites and through RSS. The organization also provides consulting and speakers bureau services to the industry.