March 9, 2011 - 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 #64.” This report is free to Premium Members of WhatTheyThink.

This report is available for immediate purchase for others at:

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

January 2011 commercial printing shipments were $6.7 billion, up $270 million (+4.1%) compared to 2010. Adjusting for inflation, shipments were up +2.5%. Shipments for 2010 were also revised to be $86.7 billion. “Despite a dreadful first quarter in 2010, the remaining months were up +3%, to finish the year slightly higher than 2009,” explained Dr. Joe Webb, director of WhatTheyThink's Economics and Research Center. “January's shipment rise benefited from an easy comparison to the first quarter of 2010, but it continued a string of 10 months of positive comparisons to the prior year. We hope it continues.”

Dr. Webb stated that the industry should consider this as breathing room to get ready for another wave of technological competition. “Healthy businesses constantly restructure themselves for the changes they foresee in their marketplace. Print businesses need to use this time well, and carefully reorganize their operations for the continuing pressures of communications technologies. The pressures for consolidation in the printing industry will persist, and it's important that businesses that do combine do so in a proactive way that creates new product offerings for the increased preference and reliance for digital media.”

The latest report includes a discussion of January's shipments, Canada's December and full-year shipments, and updated forecasts for the North American printing industry to 2017.

The Monthly Printing Shipments Report contains both current and inflation-adjusted analysis of commercial printing and print services shipments, and forecasts for 2011 through 2017. 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.

https://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.

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.