He added that if the figures were on a quarterly basis they would have been even higher after a particularly strong August, which was up 30% on the previous year.

CTP continued to drive growth and CTP plates now make up over 70% of plate sales by volume, although there are still an awful lot of smaller printers yet to make the move.

Dalton said CTP growth was across the board with a number of early adopters now looking for replacement systems, and contrary to some rivals' claims firms running thermal were moving to violet. Environmental concerns were also leading more firms to look at violet photopolymer as used by Fuji rather than silver as used by Agfa, according to Dalton.

Dalton also claimed that the firm's focus on workflow since last November when it launched Rampage Open Workflow had paid off with "35-40% of our demos now workflow only".

Story by Barney Cox