Industry profits data for the second quarter of 2019 came out in September, and annualized profits for Q2 were down from $3.61 billion to $3.05 billion.

In Q2, for the industry on average, profits before taxes were 3.45% of revenues, and for the last six quarters, they’ve averaged 4.11% of revenues.

Our “tale of two cities” continues like the epic story it is, with the profitability gap between large and small printers yawning almost as wide as it ever has. Back in June, when we looked at the Q1 2019 profits report, we noted that large printers’ profits before taxes were -2.30% of revenues while for smaller printers, they were 8.76% of revenues. In Q2, large printers profits before taxes turned positive—but just barely: 0.5% of revenues. For small printers, profits before taxes came in at 6.74% of revenues.