CeWe Color: 2009 sales targets surpassed

‘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 PhotoBooks 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 PhotoBooks 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 PhotoBook 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.

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.

The volume increase of the CeWe PhotoBook 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 PhotoBook, the clear market leader, to maintain its No. 1 position once again.

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.