The Centre of the World is Shifting – News from On Demand Russia
InfoTrend’s just successfully completed the second On Demand Russia conference, with the exhibition still running until Tuesday. On Demand Russia was co-located this year with PolygraphInter – the biggest Graphic Arts exhibition in Russia, which is taking place every two years in Moscow.
So far no attendance figures have been published, as the show is still ongoing, but observers voiced that this is one of the busiest trade shows in 2009. It certainly did beat Print09 on the number of visitor per isle. Also conference attendance for On Demand Russia was slightly up and better than expected. Emerging countries in general seem to form the brightest spots for the second half of 2009 for industry suppliers.
Of course it is not the case that Russia did not have any problems recently: PolygraphInter was initially planned to comprise four halls, but since in the running up to the show some companies scaled down their exhibits or pulled out altogether the exhibition comprised only two halls. Industry experts also reckon that printing industry revenues for the first half of 2009 are down by 30% compared to their peak.
Still the number of visitors and first feedback from vendors confirm a much more upbeat outlook now. Russian printers are looking into investments again. This also confirms how volatile the Russian market is: Russia had one of the highest GDP growth rates among the industrialised countries in 2007 and still a good year in 2008, while the GDP is expected to decline by -7% in 2009, one of the highest declines among the industrialised countries. The roller coaster ride is expected to continue with a return to decent growth predicted for 2010.
There remain some noticeable differences to Western markets though – and these are not limited to conference attendees arriving quite late and having snow in October. While most markets already realised the importance of software and solutions, there is still little awareness and interest for software in the Russian market. Some reservations might be based on the lack of Russian language versions. However there is still a very strong focus on hardware in the market. Efficiency and cost saving potentials of software and solutions are much harder to convey and have not sunk in into the mind of Russian printers. There is definitely more market education required and InfoTrends plans to contribute to this with its On Demand Russia 2010.
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