VISTA ACHIEVES RECORD RESULTS

Vista (formerly Vistaprint) has filed record results for the financial year, with CEO Robert Keane saying the company has enormous opportunities, and saying it will continue to disrupt the independent print business market.

Keane says the highly fragmented nature of print manufacturing, with thousands of small businesses, means his strategy of mass customisation through automation will drive strong growth in the business.

Vistaprint is the largest of the operating arms of parent group Cimpress. Keane cites Australia as one of its three key primary markets, along with Europe and North America, and says the company is targeting 60 per cent of the US$100bn addressable market that is “still served by traditional suppliers.”

Vista in Australia has its manufacturing plant in Deer Park, Melbourne, running a host of highly automated print systems including offset and digital, all coming through its online ordering site.

Keane said, “Continuing to extend our scale-based advantages is important to Cimpress' future, because we are leading a multi-decade market shift of print and print-related markets from traditional business models to mass customisation. We are disrupting a highly fragmented landscape of thousands of smaller traditional competitors who still account for the majority of the market value, which means that our opportunity remains enormous.”

Sending his intentions to the independent print businesses he said, “Given this, our scale-based advantages provide us the foundation upon which we can better serve customers, earn more market share, and extend our multi-decade history of profitable growth.”

In the year to June sales at Vista rose by eight per cent to US$1.74bn, up from US$1.61bn the year before, with EBITDA margins increasing by five per cent to 19 per cent, and EBITDA rising by 50 per cent to US$328m from US$224m.

For the Cimpress group as a whole, of which Vista is the biggest part, sales increased by seven per cent to US$3.29bn, while EBITDA rose by US$128.9m to $468.7m.

Keane was at drupa in May to sign with Landa for several S11P presses, although he did the same at the 2016 show, but none of the 20 presses of that deal were installed. This time the order number is undisclosed, but there will be at least one each for the US and Europe. Keane also signed a deal at drupa with Ricoh for its 150 metres a minute VC80000 high speed inkjet web.