During 2004, the number of digital technology installations increased by 9%, compared with an average of 4% in Western Europe.

The UK was also Europe's largest market for high-speed black-and-white machines, accounting for 23% of installations.

"The UK is the leader in black-and-white digital," said Ralf Schlzer, associate director at InfoTrends and the author of the report. "Colour installations are also increasing."

POD covers a wide range of sectors, including copy shops, commercial print, data centre printing, direct mail, on-demand books and corporate in-house operations.

Schlzer said POD's rise had been fuelled by improvements in front-end technology.

He added that the UK is ahead of the market because it is more advanced in using databases, the correct IT infrastructure is in place and printers are "less conservative".

"Overall growth is due to digital printing technology becoming further developed," said Schlzer. "Marketing companies are picking up on the one-to-one possibilities and prices are coming down massively."

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UK Digital installations
2004
Black and white 1,629 
Colour 7,160
2009 (predicted)
Black and white 1,812 
Colour 10,332