HP says it set new industry records in digital printing in calendar year 2006, surpassing several milestones that signify an acceleration in its Indigo digital press business.

• • Number of annual impressions printed on HP Indigo surpassed 10 billion;
• • Single-month record with more than 1 billion impressions printed in November;
• • HP Indigo year-over-year impressions grew by 40 per cent.

HP is addressing industry market growth by continuing to take a
leadership position in R&D and product development, as well as in
offering its customers comprehensive business development services so
that they can also target high-growth application areas.

According to industry analyst firm InfoTrends, overall US revenues for digital presses in the high-volume, "1M+ average monthly impressions" category is expected to grow from US$3.5bn in 2006 to $13.5bn by 2010.¹

"HP is addressing industry market growth by continuing to take a leadership position in R&D and product development, as well as in offering its customers comprehensive business development services so that they can also target high-growth application areas," says Charlie Corr, group director, InfoTrends.

In addition, InfoTrends data lists HP as the leading provider of digital presses for the digital label printing industry.²

"Achieving the 10 billion impressions milestone demonstrates how the advantages of HP Indigo digital print technology, such as personalization, short-run quantities and elimination of inventories, are helping HP lead the transformation from analog to digital," says Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo Division, HP.

"Our customers are discovering that the real profit opportunity in digital comes from offering the best quality, and this is especially apparent in direct mail and marketing collateral markets as well as rapidly growing niche markets such as books-on-demand, photo merchandise and label printing."

Marketers, publishers, consumer product companies and consumers are increasingly using digital print technology to produce everything from marketing collateral and direct mail to photo merchandise and books and manuals.

Digital print technology, like that found in HP Indigo presses, offers great value and convenience with its ability to print in small runs while also providing offset-quality imaging.

HP Indigo presses are widely used in the production of personalised direct mail and marketing communications materials.

According to an InfoTrends survey, marketing collateral and direct mail are the top two segments for high-volume digital color printing, collectively accounting for 44 per cent of high-volume digital colour press pages.³

The rise of digital printing in key industries such as photo, publishing and labels has contributed to the growth of HP Indigo press installations and impressions. Emerging high-growth niche areas for HP Indigo include:

• Books-on-demand: HP Indigo presses cost-effectively produce full-color and mixed monochrome/color texts on demand, eliminating the minimum run lengths required for offset printing. Customers such as Amazon, which installed multiple HP Indigo presses in 2006, are using digital to increase the number of available titles, including texts that were previously not available on demand.
• Photo merchandise products such as personal calendars, cards and photobooks: HP Indigo is among the leading brands in digital presses used to produce photo merchandise products and the only one capable of producing images in up to seven colors for more life-like, silver-halide-quality images.
• Labels and packaging: HP Indigo industrial-model presses, such as the newly released HP Indigo press ws4500, are used to print high-quality packaging and labels. In the past five years, the volume of labels printed with HP Indigo presses has increased by 500 per cent.

Sources

¹ InfoTrends, Inc., "U.S. Print On Demand Market Forecast, 2005-2010," page 83, Aug. 8, 2006.
² InfoTrends, Inc., "The Opportunity for Print On Demand Solutions in the Label Industry," page 39, April 1, 2006.
³ InfoTrends, Inc., "The Evolving U.S. Digital Color On Demand Printing Opportunity," page 170, Nov. 30, 2005.

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