Xeikon looks to packaging after sales slump

Xeikon has seen its sales fall by nearly a third in the third quarter of the year, with year-to-date sales also down.

Xeikon has reported a 29 percent drop in its third quarter sales, with nine-month sales down nearly 10 percent. Sales in the Digital Printing Solutions business unit over the first nine months of 2013 were at an equal level to the same period in 2012, although third quarter sales were 22 percent lower year-on-year.

Xeikon put this down to the timing on Drupa in the second quarter of 2012, with Labelexpo Europe 2013 not taking place until the latter stages of the third quarter of 2013.

In its Prepress Solutions business segment, year-to-date sales were down 35 percent when comparing 2013 to 2012, with a 52 percent drop during the third quarter.

Xeikon said the downturn in Prepress Solutions is due to ‘significantly lower sales on the newspaper printing market’, and stated that the drop in sales over the first nine months of 2013 ‘is entirely due to the Prepress Solutions segment’.

‘Xeikon expects a larger contribution from sales in the packaging market (ThermoflexX) in the future,’ the company noted in a trading update.

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