Cimpress N.V., a global online custom printer for businesses and consumers, reported full-year and Q4 sales growth and says it has agreed to sell its Netherlands-based Albumprinter photo book unit to an unnamed buyer. The consumer-focused Albumprinter fits the Cimpress master plan of becoming a mass customization platform strategy, but while the unit is profitable it has underperformed against the competition, says CEO Robert Keane.

Albumprinter “is very strong in the Benelux and Nordics market. But there are very strong players in particular two large players, one in Germany and other parts of Europe and one more in France and the U.K.,” Keane told analysts on the company’s year-end earnings call Wednesday. “So we don’t believe that we would ever become the clear market leader in Europe, and it’s a business we never found a way to bring into the United States,” he said, according to a transcript of the call from Seeking Alpha.

Albumprinter includes Bergen, Norway-based FotoKnudsen, a business-to-consumer photo book and custom printing subsidiary.

The company’s Vistaprint custom-printing sales, through Vistaprint.com, grew 7.4% for the year, in line with expectations despite 6% growth in Q4 compared with 12% in Q4 of fiscal 2016. “We continue to see strong growth in our repeat bookings, new customers grew for the fifth quarter in a row, the spend-per-customer is strong,” chief financial officer Sean Quinn told analysts. “We continue to be happy with the trends that we see.”

Cimpress, which until a 2014 rebranding operated as Vistaprint, is decentralizing its operating structure to “improve accountability for customer satisfaction and capital returns to simplify decision-making and to improve the speed of execution,” Keane said earlier this year.

The restructuring includes building out its mass customization platform, which began in 2014. The platform combines in-house software and production technology the company uses to “mass-customize” personalized products, such as business cards, in small quantities at low prices. Cimpress says its platform features automated graphic processing steps that reduce per-order set-up costs and self-service, browser-based design tools for customers. Eventually all transactions will occur on the platform, Cimpress says.

For the fiscal 2017 year ended June 30, Cimpress reported:

• Total online sales of $2.14 billion, up 19.6% from $1.79 billion in fiscal 2016.
• Vistaprint sales of $1.31 billion, up 7.4% from $1.22 billion, accounting for 61.2% of total sales for the year.
• Upload and Print unit sales of $588.6 million, up 36.1% from $432.6 million.
• All Other Business sales of $128.8 million, down 6.8% from $138.2 million.
• National Pen sales of $112.7 million. Cimpress acquired National Pen for $202.6 million in December.
• An operating loss of $45.7 million, compared with operating income of $78.2 million.
• A net loss of $72.2 million compared with net income of $50.4 million in the same period last year.

The All Other Business unit includes consumer-focused Albumprinter and FotoKnudsen; Most of World business units in Japan, India, Brazil and China; and Corporate Solutions business unit, which focuses on selling through other merchants.

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, Cimpress reported:

• Total online sales of $564.3 million, up 17.8% from $479.2 million in Q4 2016.
• Vistaprint sales of $319.2 million, up 4.7% from $305.0 million, representing 56.6% of total online sales for the quarter.
• Upload and Print unit sales of $161.8 million, up 10.4% from $146.5 million.
• All Other Business sales of $29.4 million, up 6.1% from $27.7 million.
• National Pen business unit sales of $53.9 million.
• An operating loss of $9.7 million, compared with operating income of $16.0 million.
• A net loss of $34.5 million, compared with net income of $17.2 million.

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