NAPL State of Industry Update Helps Printers Prepare for Expected Economic Slowdown

As the expected slowdown approaches, the printing industry is experiencing its fastest growth rate in years—up 5.7% in August, 2006, after growing 6.4% in July and 7.2% in June. Year-to-date sales (as of August) were up 6.5%--the strongest growth over the first eight months of any year since 1998.

However, as NAPL reports, only the most efficient and productive companies are growing profitably. The rest are caught in a classic profit squeeze, since hyper-competitive markets won’t tolerate raising prices enough to fully offset accelerating costs.