Weve been saying for some time that its an extremely difficult economic environment for printers, he said. Theres significant overcapacity. Its tough out there and competition is fierce. Pricing on spot business was far more volatile than on long-term contracts, he added.
Performance did, however, improve in September, he said. But it was not enough to prevent the group from suffering a 40% fall in net income to 35m ($60m) for the three months to 30 September. Operating income dropped by a quarter to 74m and revenues slipped by 1.9% to 938m.
European sales rose, though, by 7.4% to 158m, mainly due to currency translation effects. But with the exception of the UK, Austria and Belgium, pricing pressure and overcapacity took their toll on operating margins, which fell from 5.3% to 2.8% in Europe.
Quebecor Worlds French operations, which account for around half of its European revenues, have started to show some signs of improvement after a difficult year and they made a profit in September.
In the US, capacity utilisation was only 76.5% in September, the lowest figure since March 2002.
Quebecor World has cut nearly 1,200 jobs so far this year and more than 5,000 since 2001 and it managed to reduce its selling, general and administrative costs by 8.2m in the third quarter.
It also said it would look to permanently lower its cost base and improve efficiencies going forward.
Story by Gordon Carson
