Business News
CeWe Color: 2009 sales targets surpassed
Thursday 14. January 2010 - - Outstanding Christmas business - CEWE PHOTO BOOK sets new record for quarterly results - CEWE PHOTO BOOK sales leap 38% - Portion of high-quality products on the rise
CeWe Color Holding AG (SDAX, ISIN:
DE0005403901) has outstripped all of its own sales targets in the 2009
financial year: despite the generally perceptible impact of the global
economic crisis in 2009, the total number of photos, the number of digital
photos, the number of analogue film photos and the CEWE PHOTO BOOKS all
outshined the figures forecast. ‘The high demand from consumers for our
attractive products proves that CeWe Color has mastered the transition to
digital business with aplomb,’ said Rolf Hollander, Chairman of the Board
of CeWe Color Holding AG. In the fourth quarter, the total number of
photos rose by +8.0% from the previous year’s figure to 718 million. CEWE
PHOTO BOOKS achieved a new quarterly record, selling 1.4 million copies (Q4
2008: 1.0 million).
Total number of photos comes in 8% above forecast
In the whole of 2009, the sales of CEWE PHOTO BOOKS rose to 3.6 million
copies, overshooting the target of 3.5 million books pegged at the start of
the year by 4.1%. Indeed, CeWe Color exceeded all its other sales targets
for 2009, too: a total of 2,036 million digital photos were sold
(including the CEWE PHOTO BOOK prints), a figure which exceeds the target
of 1,900 million photos by 7.2%. The target for photos from analogue films
was surpassed by 11.6%, with 558 million photos sold. The total number of
photos sold thus came to 2,594 million, +8.1% more than the 2,400 million
targeted at the start of the year.
Success with value-added products
Despite a 32.6% drop in analogue film photos to just 558.3 million, CeWe
Color was able to maintain an almost constant figure for the total number
of photos sold, attaining 2,594 million (2008: 2,615 million photos). This
was due to the upsurge in digital business. ‘We have provided impressive
evidence of the trend towards higher-quality products in 2009. There has
been a marked upswing in sales of our value-added products,’ said
Hollander.
CEWE PHOTO BOOK maintains European market leadership
The volume increase of the CEWE PHOTO BOOK came to +37.7% in 2009 (from 2.6
million copies in 2008 to 3.6 million in 2009). This figure is slightly
above the photo book market growth predicted by market researchers for
2009. This success enabled CEWE PHOTO BOOK, the clear market leader, to
maintain its No. 1 position once again.
Seasonal shift persists in the fourth quarter
The year 2009 confirmed the seasonal shift which has been emerging over the
last two years. CeWe Color products are increasingly in demand as
Christmas presents in the fourth quarter. This has caused a shift in
volume, sales and profits into the fourth quarter. After slipping by 3.8%
in the first three quarters of 2009, the total number of photographs rose
again in the fourth quarter by 8.0%. The share of the fourth quarter in
the total number of photos has thus risen constantly over the past years:
from 23.4% (2007) to 25.4% (2008) and then to 27.7% (2009). ‘The end of
this trend is not yet in sight. The importance of the fourth quarter is
set to increase again in 2010,’ predicted the Chairman of the Board.