The value of printing shipments dropped as expected in November, although by much more than we were expecting (on top of the usual holiday slowdown the bump printers normally see in election years ended before November), and the usual December drop continued, with shipments dropping from November’s $7.28 billion to December’s $7.40 billion.

As a result, total shipments for 2024 came in at $89.33 billion, shy of 2023’s $89.83 billion. We had expected 2024 to not be as good as 2023 or 2022, but we came close.

We are putting the finishing touches on our Printing Outlook 2025 report and our survey respondents generally had not expected 2024 to match the two big recovery years—2022 and 2023—but most reported generally “OK” conditions. (As we mentioned, it was an election year, which helped.) Optimism for 2025 is muted, but still fairly rosy.