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TrendWatch Beats the Street!
Wall Street has raised paper companies' earnings estimates and put up "buy" signals for many because of rising prices. However, our latest TrendWatch Printing survey clearly indicates that Wall Street’s giddiness is making some printers queasy.
According to TrendWatch Printing #10 Fall 1999, printers are saying that paper prices are a challenge for the next 12 months. Which Printers?:
- 18% of Small printers (quick printing, copying, duplicating, etc.)--down 2% points from six months ago;
- 9% of Sheetfed plants (brochures, advertising printing, etc.)--down 1%;
- 31% of Nonheatset web offset plants (newspaper inserts, shoppers, etc.)--up 21% from six months ago, and almost 3 times the number of printers since last survey;
- 25% of Heatset web offset plants (magazines, catalogs, etc.)--up 10%, or more than 1.6 times more printers than last survey;
- 4% of Digital printers--no change.
Why should you care?...
Maybe you don't, but just in case you do, according to Dr. Joe, there
are two basic concepts in play:
- First, every industry trend needs to be understood in terms of the segments it affects. It's important to apply a reality check to generalizations because not all trends result in the same outcome or in the same time frame in every segment of the market. In other words, customers can screw up anything.
- Second, even though the printing industry is doing a terrific job
at increasing productivity, unexpected events can often wipe-out hard-earned
benefits--and at the wrong time. With the printing industry confronting
the threat of electronic media every day, now is the worst possible
time for the comparative total cost of print to go up, or even stay
flat. Who says timing isn't everything?Excerpted from TrendWatch Printing
#10 Fall 1999. For more information about how you can receive TrendWatch
graphic arts and publishing market information reports, contact Dr.
Joseph Webb or James R. Whittington, CMC, TrendWatch partners (info@trendwatch.com)
or call 800-283-8063.