This year’s Top 100 survey spotlights good news and great performances. Total 2006 sales for those in the list were $654,899,451. That marks a 2.93% increase over last year’s Top 100. Of course, each year some participants change. This particular roster turned in an 8.14% improvement over its own previous year sales.

This year we bid farewell to three heavy hitters that have been part of the survey for many years. JKG Group, which was #4 last year with sales of $21 million, and Printing Services, which was #31 with sales of $6.49 million, were dismissed for failing to report for the third time. RPI, which was #14 with sales of $10.6 million, dropped out at the request of owner Barry Reischling who explained that the company was sold last September and has “effectively discontinued all commercial printing operations.” Those departures dropped more than $38 million from the bottom line; making the sustained growth even more encouraging.

Seventeen companies are listed with estimated sales due to failure to report updated numbers. Eight of those did not report for the second year in a row and will be dropped next year if they do not provide updated numbers for the survey. They are Pel Hughes Printing, Print Time, Poor Richard’s Press, CBS Music City Printing & Mailing, PDQ Printing, Rockville Printing & Graphics, EP Direct, and Automation Printing Company. Thanks to their websites, we still know these firms are in business and information such as number of locations can be updated even without their direct input.

There are 14 new firms in the list, with the highest debut going to MLI Integrated Graphic Solutions at #31 with sales of $6.2 million. ZipMail Marketing showed the most growth (316.67%) and rose from #81 to #11—the biggest jump in the list. The cut off point for making the Top 100 is now slightly more than $2.5 million; another new high. Continuing the trend of recent years, the number of shops and number of employees continue to fall. Sales per shop and sales per employee both show healthy growth, indicating more efficient workflows.

Super Stars

Loosing JKG Group means that there has been a shake up in the top 10. Balmar Printing & Graphics and Vision Integrated Graphics Group held steady at #1 and #2, respectively. Superior Glacier jumped from #5 to #3 and Copy Craft Printers slid from #3 to #4. Ginny’s Printing entered the top 10 at #5 after standing at #11 last year. Coakley Tech (#6), Copy Central (Fairbanks) (#7), and EconoPrint (Madison) (#8) each rose by one step.

LAZERQUICK fell from #6 to #9 and Pel Hughes Printing hung on to its #10 position.

The companies that populate the top 10 spots in the survey accounted for $197,610,106 in sales. That’s 30.17% of total Top 100 sales. They operate 60 locations—more than 27% of the survey’s 221 locations. Those 10 firms also employ 1,714.5 people, or 34.4% of the total Top 100 workforce.

None of the top 10 companies announced plans to open any new locations in 2007.

The subgroup’s average sales per shop (SPS) is $3,293,502, which is quite a bit higher than the overall Top 100 average. However, its average sales per employee (SPE) of $115,258 is somewhat lower than the larger group’s average.

In the Spotlight

As noted previously, ZipMail Marketing posted a chart busting 316.67% increase in sales. The company has moved its headquarters from Rancho Cordova, CA, to Sacramento and is still in a strong growth phase, according to owner Ron Weber.