Hi, I’m Dr. Joe Webb with WhatTheyThink Economics and Research Center and I wanted to talk about some of the underlying trends that are playing out in our industry.

The first one is that we’re actually getting healthier printers. In spite of the fact that demand is declining, the printers who are remaining are more focused on their customers, have picked up volume from much weaker printers who have gone out of business – so they are generally showing better bottom lines than the others.
?The other thing is that mainstream printing is disappearing and they’re more focused on niches and specialties. And this gives them a leg up on the marketplace and also gives them a better context to sell in a digital media market because those kinds of products fit in and support digital media initiatives.

Another aspect of it is that printers are more and more geographically dispersed. This is going to put some stress on dealers and manufacturers in getting coverage of the marketplace. But it also means that printers are becoming more and more geographically independent because they’re focusing on niches and specialties and more of them become regional printers.

So these three trends are gonna be very important as they play out over the next five years.