Cimpress, having come through several years of rebuilding its technology platform and internal reorganisation, is starting a new financial year with expansion in mind. And that means doubling down on its mission to take share from smaller commercial printers through the online print value proposition it has pioneered.
The 2023 financial year in which it increased sales from $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion, was the “turning point in our financial performance” according to CEO Robert Keane’s annual letter to shareholders.
“We enter this next financial year focused on execution, iterating on and improving our customer value propositions and print mass customisation capabilities,” he says.
Vista’s long transformation from one-off transactions to higher value partnerships is paying off thanks to improved pricing, a lower cost base and a focus on investments.
There was an equally strong performance from the Upload and Print businesses, its European commercial print businesses split as Print Brothers with a focus on Germany and Austria and the Print Group comprising Tradeprint, Pixart, Exaprint and Easyprint. Print Brothers continued the growth that has been underway since 2021 reporting sales of $578.4 million ($527.0 million), while after struggling to reach revenue levels to match those in 2019 the Print Group recorded sales of $346.9 million ($329.6 million). Combined, Upload and Print has reached $900 million in revenues, coming close to $1 billion.
Now the strategy, says Keane, is “to further improve the value we deliver to our customers and in doing so take share in the large fragmented landscape in which traditional print competitors still account for the majority of the market”.
There is no timescale for this, nor any measure for assessing its success in this endeavour. But it believes it has the technology in place, from the online services managed through its TunUp 200-strong software and support business in Tunisia to installation of the latest Canon Prostream 3000 at Pixart and latest Speedmaster XL106 at Tradeprint.
We are “in the early days of benefiting from the potential of our new technology platforms” says the CEO.
