The German company revealed its half-year results to 30 June today (12 August), with sales up year-on-year from €473.2m (£414m) to €509.7m, while order intake increased slightly from €679.3m to €682.9m.

KBA also reduced its operating loss from €18.9m to €7.3m and halved pre-tax loss to €11m.

The company added that the second quarter was impacted by costs as it began development of new products in time for Drupa next year.

Meanwhile it also said that the 700 redundancies that had been announced in June had been cut back to just over 500.

In recent years, press manufacturers have pointed to emerging markets such as India and China for keeping sales up. However, the manufacturer said that "brisk" business was reported in Europe and Latin America, as well as Asia.

The overall view was echoed by UK managing director Christian Knapp, who said that projects that the company had been working on for a long time were beginning to come to fruition.

He said: "Interest levels are higher than they used to be. There is still resistance from financiers, but that is improving. I think for the right companies finance is available and I am a lot more optimistic than I was."

However, Knapp added that the continuing struggle for the industry could see a split between haves and have-nots.

"I feel it is going to be a two-prong strategy," he said. "A lot of equipment is of an age now where repairing it is not going to give you a competitive advantage. Financially sound print companies will be able to invest in new equipment and they will gain advantage from that."

The company also said that it was working on a new product that would be launched at Drupa 2012, however it would not speculate on what the product would be.