Commercial Printing Outlook : Bootstrap Time for Printers

"We have seen printers' profits improving the past few years since we bottomed out in the recession. I look for printers' margins to improve marginally. About 25 percent of printers make solid profits, and 75 percent operate basically on a break-even basis."

Davis sees the most profitable of segments being what he calls print logistics—labels, wrappers, packaging—reaping a 3 percent increase for 2014. Marketing print and promotional printing (direct marketing, direct mail and catalogs) project a 1 percent rise, while communication printing—books, magazines and newspapers—could fall between 2 percent and 3 percent.