PAE Business Print Volume Analysis Update 2023

Nearly a year ago we published our first update on page volumes across our Dealer base, so I thought it worthwhile to follow it up and see what has been happening in terms of volumes as Covid 19 becomes something we live with, the war continues in Ukraine and we are in the midst  a cost of the living crisis to

As a reminder the baseline facts are;

PAE Business support and manages devices across the EMEA region, however just over 98% of the page volume is in Western Europe. These volumes are managed by a wide variety of businesses within our channel of some 700 organisations. We have used November 2019 to benchmark as our last “old normal” month.

In November 2019 monitored devices produced 1,052,845,276 pages.

In April 2020, we were in the midst of the first lockdown. As a result, the number of pages output had reduced by a staggering 65.7% to 34.3% of the November 2019 total.

November 2020, a year on from our benchmark month and the volume had recovered and was at 86.2% of the November 2019 total

Into 2021 where we saw a resurgence of Covid 19 into the New Year and lockdowns once again emerge across Europe.

In February 2021 the page volume was down to 62.3% of the November 2019 total, a short month perhaps but January was only at 63.4% so definitely the pandemic affecting activity in the office.

November 2021 when it reached the highest point in two years at 91.4% of our benchmark.

January and February 2021 figures were 81% and 80% respectively nearly 20% higher than where we were in the same period 12 months earlier.

So here we are in 2023  and despite all the noise surrounding the death of the photocopier page volumes in January were at 91.6% of the November 2019 levels which is officially the highest level since we started monitoring page volumes.  I must stress this is a very simplistic measure and I cannot adjust for factors like acquisition in our base, but it is very encouraging to see the resilience of the page volumes in our channel.

I will update you in late summer to see if the recovery continues…