State of the Industry-Industry Wide

National economic conditions have been sluggish at best. Closer to home, print sales overall declined in both 2001 and 2002, according to the National Association for Printing Leadership, which projects, however, a return to growth in 2003.

Orders and shipments of printing equipment closely follow these trends. From a historic high of $2.7 billion in 2000, equipment shipments declined to $2.5 billion in 2001 and are projected to total $2.3 billion in 2002. Supplies shipments have also contracted, from a high of $1.961 billion in 1998 to about $1.441.7 billion in 2001, and another decline of $100 million or more estimated for 2002.