Orders for sheetfed presses rose to €149.4m (£134m) for the quarter, up from €145m the previous quarter; however the group warned it could identify "no signs of a sustained recovery".

The company also said that it had made a pre-tax profit in the third quarter of  €9.6m, which it described as "a favourable contrast to major competitors". On Tuesday, Heidelberg announced a pre-tax loss of €74m for its second quarter.

China remained a "growth engine" for the German company as "brisk" sales in China and the Middle East helped partially offset "plunging demand" in Europe and the US.

However, both sales and order volumes were well below last year's levels at KBA and it recorded a pre-tax loss of €37.8m for the nine months of the year after a €35.2m and €12.2m loss in the first and second quarters respectively.

KBA chief executive Helge Hansen said "If the fourth quarter proves disappointing and we post a negative result for the year, it will be in the low single-digit million euro range and would still represent a notable achievement compared to the performance of other players in the sector."

He also hit out at the collapse of the merger talks between rivals Heidelberg and Manroland.

"KBA will soon be engaging in a new field of operation with good potential for growth, earnings and employment. We believe that expanding our business scope is a wiser course of action than entering a merger in a shrinking market."

It is unclear at this stage, what the "new field of operation" refers to, however, it has been rumoured for some time that KBA could be in talks to adopt digital technology onto its web presses, possibly via a tie-up with Xaar.

KBA has cut 908 jobs during the recession and now employs 7,095 staff. It will reduce this to 7,000 by the end of the year and to 6,500 by mid-2010.

For more, see next week's PrintWeek.