The press giant posted a pre-tax loss of €13m (£11.5m) for the three months to 31 December 2009, up from a €22m loss in Q3 2008, on revenues of €578m, down 23% year-on-year from €750m.

Heidelberg said the Q3 sales were the highest for its financial year, while orders at €609m were 9% up year-on-year, despite the prior year benefiting from orders from Drupa 08. Order backlog grew sequentially to €626m from €617m.

Chief executive Bernard Schreier said orders were "slightly up", particularly in China and Germany, citing demand for its large-format presses.

However, he added: "There is currently no sign of a significant recovery... because, generally speaking, print shops around the globe are still reluctant to invest."

George Clarke, managing director, Heidelberg UK, said: "I can't honestly say that the UK market is looking particularly bouyant, but I'm not sure it's getting any worse.

"Maybe there are signs of life now, but it's still a difficult market. Just the fact that it's more stable is much better than what we had before."

The company revealed that some €30m of a €179m pot it had hived off to cover the expense of its cost-cutting measures had been unused, bringing its operating result, including special items, into the positive at €17m.

Heidelberg also said that investors in a 2005 €300m convertible bond, which runs until 2012, had exercised an option to have it repaid early in the final quarter of the 2009/10 financial year.

A spokesperson said the repayment would be financed through its credit arrangmeent with KfW (Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau) – a German government-owned bank.

Staff levels were reduced by a further 181 in Q3, taking the total number of staff to 18,020, down from 19,548 last year. This takes total job losses from Heidelberg's staff reduction programme to 2,550, with the total expected to reach 4,000 worldwide by the end March 2011.

For the nine months to 31 December 2009, Heidelberg recorded sales of €1.6bn, down 28% from €2.2bn for the same period in the previous year, and a pre-tax loss of €201m, compared with a loss of €153m in 2008/09.

It predicted its full-year sales to be "significantly below the level recorded in financial year 2008/2009" to achieve an operating result of between -€110m and -€150m.

Shares in the company were up more than 5% to €5.46 on the Xetra exchange at the time of writing.

Heidelberg's Q3 results follow those of KBA, which released its preliminary results for 2009 last week.

KBA has accused Heidelberg of "selling off stock at deep discounts" having received state aid from the German government.

Heidelberg refused to comment on the accusations, but pointed to its declining net debt, which fell from €721m to €675m in the first nine months, as evidence that this is not the case.