Hannan says IPMG has had positive growth in catalogue volumes, with the Australian Financial Review (AFR) reporting that catalogue printing volumes in IPMG’s Hannanprint Victorian division were steady during 2008-09.

Hannanprint NSW lifted its volumes five per cent due in part to the addition of new clients including Coles supermarkets, which dumped PMP last year. Michael Hannan told the AFR that some clients had moved to lower paper grades, but no significant clients have stopped producing catalogues or reduced their frequency.

Last month Richard Allely said PMP’s 2008-09 earnings before interest and tax would drop 36.5 per cent to $54m. Allely said the drop was in part due to, “Non-food retailers (who) were cutting the sizes and print runs of their catalogues to save money.”

An industry source said PMP may be doing it tough but that didn’t necessarily mean the entire catalogue industry was struggling, adding that PMP had particular problems.

However Allely rejected the suggestion he had overstated conditions in the catalogue market saying, “I was not exaggerating, absolutely not. Our rivals cannot see what we see they operate in one maybe two states. They don’t cover all states in Australia or operate in New Zealand like we do.”

PMP has lost market share in the past 12 months to smaller competitors such as Franklin Web, Webstar and Cadillac as well as IPMG, but Allely essentially believes that what is a big win for them is a small loss for PMP.

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