The division posted third-quarter sales of 541m ($998m), 7% up on 504m in the third quarter of 2003.

Xerox European head of public relations Kevin Perlmutter said that Xerox does not break its results into regions, but said: "Europe as a whole has made its contribution to these results and as a part of that the UK is one of our biggest markets."

The company reported installations of colour digital printing kit up by 16% year-on-year, with monochrome production equipment installs growing by 8%.

"We would hope to continue to see growth in those areas as we go forward into next year," said Perlmutter.

Overall sales for the whole Xerox group did not move over the year, remaining stable at 2.0bn, with pre-tax Q3 profits of 89m, up from 64m for the same period last year.

Story by Josh Brooks