Extract of PressXchange article posted in july 2016

Drupa and the used machinery market

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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. 

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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

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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.

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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.

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John Roadnight
Director
pressXchange.com