For the first six months of this year the group recorded 217m (eur308m) of new sheetfed orders, just 2.1m behind its German rival, which also reported interim results last week. KBA also bucked the trend because its sheetfed orders grew by 1%.

However, sheetfed press sales fell by 10% to 191m, while total sales slumped 26.9% to 353.5m, mainly due to the depressed web market, particularly in newspapers.

New orders for web presses also dropped 4.3% to 166m. However, KBA still thinks success in sheetfed will enable it to hit its full-year sales target of 850m.

KBA made an 18.8m pre-tax loss for the first half and expects to report a post-tax loss for the full year as weak demand and low prices take hold. It also said there had been delays in implementing job cuts at its web press production plants.

Higher R&D costs in the build-up to next Mays Drupa hit first-half figures too.