2010 a tough year but NZ printers prove optimistic

PrintNZ Industry Report printing company respondents cut investment on their businesses by more than half, spending $23.2m in 2010 compared with $49.8m in 2009. This is just a third of what they were investing in 2006.

However, in determined defiance of the recession, they announced their intentions to almost double investment in the year ahead.

This is despite an 11% drop in printing sales to last September with no sign of volumes recovering. According to the accompanying Infometrics Industry Review, sales in the year to June 2010 are still 13% below where they were two years earlier.

The 7th PrintNZ Industry Report received responses from 229 companies covering 4,394 employees with $817 million in sales. It reported that it’s almost impossible to put a gloss on investing in the industry with the average rate of return being just over 1%. Incomes in the printing industry were on average 9.3% lower in the year to March 2009 than in the previous year.

Nonetheless 64% of respondents expect their businesses to grow in the next 12 months and 86% expect growth in the next three years. More companies are expecting to train staff in 2011 in order to keep them up to date with technology.

Overall 38 printing businesses closed their doors while the average size of those remaining shrank from 8.1 employees to 7.9. Wellington and Canterbury saw the largest falls while Auckland still remains print central with 52% of printing employment. Since 2000, employment nationally in printing has fallen by 1,659 from 11,841 to 10,182.

The Industry Review considers last June quarter to be a turning point for the printing and publishing industries with expected growth of 4% over the next three years. This is due to a forecast improvement in general economic activity and the fact that not as many printing businesses failed in the recent recession as in past downturns. Although printing companies downsized they still kept their highly skilled workers, which would seem to indicate that the survivors are now almost unsinkable.

Even with this the predictions are it will take until March 2013 for activity levels to return to pre-recession levels.

In responding to Opportunities and Threats individuals gave a salty flavour to the bland statistics.

Under Opportunities:
“Fewer printing companies.”
“Create the need for print by convincing clients it is a superior communication medium.”

Under Threats:
“Cowboy pricing especially during this recessions is still with us.”
“Crazy pricing dragging everyone’s prices and margins down even though costs have increased.”
“Staff being as good as they are.”

And finally from a Canterbury printer;
“Well, a 7.1 earthquake didn’t help!”