PRESS RELEASE: CeWe Color is Germany's 'Best Innovator' in 2010
CeWe Color Holding AG / Miscellaneous
05.02.2010
Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by
DGAP - a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer / publisher is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------------
CeWe Color is Germany's 'Best Innovator' in 2010
- Award from WirtschaftsWoche and AT Kearney
- Technological transition from analogue to digital effectively mastered
- CEWE PHOTO BOOK established as a successful brand
- European market leader in photofinishing
- Growth sector of commercial digital printing: launch of online printing
shop aprinto.de
Oldenburg, 5 February 2010. The German journal WirtschaftsWoche and
management consultants A.T.Kearney have distinguished CeWe Color Holding AG
(SDAX, ISIN: DE0005403901) as 'Best Innovator'. The awards were presented
in the Federal Ministry of Economics in Berlin on Thursday evening. Besides
CeWe Color, Henkel was distinguished in the category for major
corporations. 'CeWe Color is an excellent example of innovation in a
business model,' said A.T.Kearney partner Kai Engel. In the past, the
competition had already been successful in identifying innovative companies
with considerable growth potential: 'The stock exchange prices of former
Best Innovator winners have performed far better on average than the DAX
itself during the past few years,' Kai Engel sums up.
Transition successfully handled
CeWe Color has mastered the technological transition from analogue to
digital photography and has reinforced the position of the company as the
European market leader in the field of photofinishing. The results are
impressive: in what was previously the most highly competitive market in
Germany, the company has doubled its market share in industrial
photofinishing since 2002, from 25 per cent to 50 per cent. While CeWe
Color produced only 36 million digital photos in 2002, this figure had
risen to more than two billion digital photos in 2009. The CEWE PHOTO BOOK
is a particularly successful product: CeWe Color increased sales from
70,000 in the 2005 business year to more than 3.6 million books in 2009.
The development of an outstanding software program, the introduction of a
brand name and the intensive operation of Internet sales were decisive
success factors here. 'The transformation phase was hugely demanding for
the company: we reduced the number of operations from 28 to 13, we had to
cope with high restructuring costs and at the same time we invested in
innovations. We nevertheless generated profits and paid out dividends every
year during the transformation phase. This was only possible because the
entire Group focused on the challenge of making the transition as such a
successful one,' says Dr. Rolf Hollander.
'From mass to class'
CeWe Color recognised the trend towards digital photography as early as in
1994 and invested considerably in products, production technology and
software - despite the fact that the volume of analogue prints produced was
still growing at this time. As early as in 1997 - long before the market
itself - CeWe Color was the first company worldwide to install order
stations for digital photos in retail stores. In 1998 already, CeWe Color
opened up the Internet as a new sales channel when it launched an order
platform for digital photos. Since 2002 alone, the company has invested 250
million euros in new technologies - including investments in more than 50
modern digital printing machines, industrial book binding production lines
and 25,000 order terminals for retail stores. In addition to production,
CeWe Color also focused on innovative products: the 'from mass to class'
strategy has now already paid off and new, individual, personalised
products are the growth drivers of the Group. The main growth driver here
is the CEWE PHOTO BOOK, which has now established itself as the leading
photo book brand in Europe. The same applies for photo gift articles, wall
decorations and other print products such as greeting cards and calendars,
which all account for a markedly rising share in turnover and earnings.
Today 120 software developers secure the development edge of the CEWE PHOTO
BOOK and the order software that CeWe Color makes available to final
consumers through its retail partners.
Commercial digital printing is an additional growth sector
CeWe Color and its subsidiary diron are continuing to open up the area of
digital commercial printing as an addition growth sector. While the company
has until now concentrated on special solutions for large enterprises, on
the website at www.aprinto.de, small and medium-sized companies and small
businesses can now also have professional books and brochures produced -
without any professional software and without having to order a minimum
number of copies. With this new business sector, CEO Rolf Hollander has his
sights firmly set on the next growth spurt. 'Innovation is an element of
our daily work, it makes the success achieved in the past few years
possible and it secures growth in future.'
picture from left to right: Dr. Olaf Holzkämper, Dr. Hella Hahm, Dr. Rolf
Hollander, Dr.Reiner Fageth, Thomas Grunau
Financial schedule:
13 April 2010 Announcement of the figures for the 2009 business year
18 May 2010 Announcement of the figures for the first quarter of 2010
2 June 2010 Annual General Meeting, Park Hotel, Bremen
17 August 2010 Announcement of the figures for the second quarter of 2010
16 November 2010 Announcement of the figures for the third quarter of 2010
About CeWe Color: Photo service company CeWe Color, with 13 highly
technical production operations and a staff of around 2,700 employees in 24
European countries, is both market and technological leader. The company
supplied around 2.6 billion photos and more than 3.6 million CEWE PHOTO
BOOKS to more than 50,000 retail partners in 2009. CeWe Color is a 'first
mover' in the launch of new digital technologies, for example ordering
digital photos in the Internet or with the help of order terminals
(DigiFoto Makers) in retail stores. Sales of personalised CEWE PHOTO BOOKS
are developing extremely well. In 1961, CeWe Color was founded by Senator
h.c. Heinz Neumüller. The company went public under the leadership of
Hubert Rothärmel in 1993. CeWe Color Holding AG is listed on the SDAX.
Should you have any queries, please contact:
CeWe Color Holding AG, Axel Weber (Investor Relations) or Dr. Hella Hahm
(Press)
Tel.: 0441 / 404 - 2288, Fax: 0441 / 404 - 421,
Email: IR@cewecolor.de, Internet: www.cewecolor.de or www.cewe-fotobuch.de
Photos will be distributed by mecom-Bildkanal 'ddp-direkt' and available at
http://ir-cockpit.equitystory.com/cgi-bin/fncls.ssp?fn=ddi&news_id=79543
05.02.2010 Ad hoc announcement, Financial News and Media Release distributed by DGAP.
Media archive at www.dgap-medientreff.de and www.dgap.de
=--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language: English
Company: CeWe Color Holding AG
Meerweg 30-32
26133 Oldenburg
Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)441 40 4-1
Fax: +49 (0)441 40 4-42 1
E-mail: IR@cewecolor.de
Internet: www.cewecolor.de
ISIN: DE0005403901
WKN: 540390
Indices: SDAX
Listed: Regulierter Markt in Berlin, Frankfurt (Prime Standard);
Freiverkehr in München, Hannover, Düsseldorf, Hamburg,
Stuttgart
End of News DGAP News-Service
=--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 05, 2010 01:15 ET (06:15 GMT)
Quelle: DowJones
