Six Challenges Facing the Commercial Printing Industry Spelled Out in RRD, Quad Annual Reports

The two largest American printing companies recently presented similar lists of the major challenges they face—and similar strategies for growing in the face of declining demand.

“The highly competitive market conditions and unused industry capacity will continue to put price pressure on both transactional work and contract renewals across all segments,” R.R. Donnelley stated in its 2013 annual report. Translation: Underused presses + shrinking demand=lower print prices.

It was basically same blues, different tune from Number 2 printer Quad/Graphics in the annual report it also released last week...