So far, in the US, the financial crisis doesn't seem to be affecting disc duplication - that's the consensus of a number of industry sources. Jeff Bitsimis, president of SRT in New York, said that this year has been different, but not necessarily bad for his business, particularly in Q4. "A big part of our fourth quarter used to be driven by the financial companies, but that has been dead for the past year," he said. "Now, we're busier for a different reason, doing more of the bankruptcy documentation, which is sad, but we can offer a valuable service even to those companies going through restructuring.

"If a company has to send out several hundred - or several thousand - piece documents, that could mean 10 trucks of documents versus eight skids of CDs on one truck. There are great savings there." On the equipment side, Tom Peterson of Rimage added that there is at least one positive trend. If a content provider does a moderate initial run on a title, many times they will use on-demand production equipment as a means of production during the long tail.

"When a book, a music CD, a video DVD, or a new software program or game comes out, there is an initial large production run, but the second or third run is never as profitable as the first due to economies of scale," Peterson said. "The temptation is to make more than you need so you don't run out, but after the initial buzz on a title dies down, you don't want 20,000 discs on the shelf that you will never use. As long as you have a production system that will make high-quality discs with full colour, you can manufacture small quantities or even single copies on-demand with the same quality as your initial run had."

Bill Dudley, president of duplicator Immodicus, believes that the industry has been seeing a shift from longer runs to shorter, which means a shift from replication to duplication. "As yet, business in Houston has not been greatly impacted by the current financial crisis. The duplication business trend seems to be favouring media tailor-made to more precisely identified market segments," he said, "which is an advantage for duplicators with digital printing services."

While not necessarily a typical year for CD Works in Boston either, it doesn't seem to be ending so badly. Jeff Starfield, co-founder, admitted that the year had been fairly slow up until September. That didn't have to do with regular business, however, but rather not getting the bid on a few big jobs which usually gives a boost to "the top line rather than the bottom line". Starfield said there is just more competition from replicators and other duplicators. "However, for the last month and a half, we've been ahead of last year."

Is he feeling secure? Probably just as secure as anyone else right now. "We haven't seen a direct impact from the financial crisis yet, but the big question mark is: will the strong business continue?

Source : OTOO