NPES Third Quarter Equipment Shipments Data--Some Good News, Some Bad

However, somewhat more disturbing is the size of the decline witnessed in the 3rd quarter. As shown in Figure 2, the 9.7% quarter over quarter decline is almost double even the largest quarterly decline of the past three years. This points to the likelihood that print volumes for the 3rd quarter took a stronger negative decline as well. PIA flash data shows traditional lithographic printing was down .7% for the 3rd quarter which one could have expected to be down by a greater margin given the NPES supplies data. This will all become clearer when final 2008 Printing Industries of America and NPES data are released.

Stay tuned for the 4th quarter data which will be released in late February.