Extract of PressXchange article posted in july 2016
Drupa
and the used machinery market
...
Denis Piquenot is the boss of Coci, one of the
largest dealers in the world with over 60 employees in France and 100
worldwide. Denis noticed there were fewer end-users at the show and more
dealers from outside Europe. Drupa was not a great show in terms of
spontaneous sales, but they had expected this to be the case and so were not
caught out by buying a lot of extra stock. But it is a great opportunity
to meet face to face every four years overseas contacts and customers.
...
Denis of Coci agrees that Chinese dealers are
overstocked but says that the huge size of the market means that there is
always a deal to be done somewhere. Russia, by contrast, is very slow.
Perhaps surprisingly given political turmoil and the low oil price, printers
from the Middle East were relatively plentiful on the stands and were serious
about buying
...
Coci has found that digital growth has not
affected sales too much in the B1/40” market but it has in B2/28”.
Digital is growing strongly in western countries but still has made little
impact in developing markets. Denis believes that the digital market is
still not mature – presses become obsolescent too quickly and so for many
printers do not represent a good investment. In any event Coci is not
focussing on digital presses – they will continue to concentrate on
sheetfed presses and see a good market there for the foreseeable future.
The use of sheetfed presses in packaging is growing, particularly in Asia, and
this should offset the decline in general sheetfed printing. Coci does
not have its own digital specialists but uses highly trained sub-contractors to
give customers the service they require when Coci supplies a digital machine.
He agrees that the growth of digital at the expense of sheetfed may be
why Heidelberg has entered the used field with so much enthusiasm.
...
Certainly Denis Piquenot of Coci now sees
Heidelberg Remarketed as their biggest competitor. He believes that
aggressive pricing from Heidelberg and KBA on new and used is making the North
American market difficult, but his strategy of selling there mainly through or
with the assistance of local dealers has helped them keep their market share:
the local dealers can provide the infrastructure and local support in terms of
shipping, rigging, arranging finance which customers appreciate.
World markets have become more unstable than in
the recent past, and Denis Picquenot has changed Coci’s business model.
They are not chasing the vanity of revenues but the sanity of better margins,
and this has led him to hold less stock. This helps the company to react
better to quick market changes and it is also less risky in an uncertain
market. Coci has excellent market intelligence due to their dominant
position in the market over many years: they know where equipment is and so
they are normally able to source against demand rather than tying ever larger
amounts of cash up in stock. They sell worldwide, so generally a downturn
in one area is compensated by another region. It may not be a major
driver of revenue for such a well-established company, but Coci will continue
to exhibit at Drupa – the only show at which they take a booth. This is
reflected in comments by another dealer: they will have a good year in 2016,
but Drupa will not be a main contributor to it.
...
John Roadnight
Director
pressXchange.com
