Packs and Closures

St Ives, the printing and packaging company, has reported that demand for music and multimedia products has reduced, despite overall sales growth across the company.

In an interim management statement published today (20 June) the printer and manufacturer of CD and DVD packaging reported that sales grew by 4.6% for the 43 week period from 4 August to 30 May, compared with the previous year's figure.

The company revealed that conditions during this period had been "more challenging" than predicted in the previous half-yearly statement.

However, according to St Ives there has been no significant change in the company's financial position since 1 February 2008 and cashflow remains "robust".

St Ives said in the statement that the outlook remained "uncertain", although its company-wide strategy to target new and existing customers and its continued focus on costs was helping to "mitigate the effect of volume fluctuations and price pressure".

In March the company reported sales in its packaging arm were flat despite pre-tax profit rising 17% to £12.5m across the group for the six months ended 1 February.

It said at the time that its Netherlands-based CD and DVD packaging division remains "under close review" although action taken on flexibility and cost has enabled it to break even.

St Ives customers include Sony Pictures, Universal Music, Universal Pictures and a range of large European disc duplicators.