By Sander Sondaal, Director, Commercial Print Sales, Graphic Communications Group, Ricoh Europe
Many of us will have been disappointed by the recent news that the next Hunkeler innovationdays show, which was scheduled for February next year, has been postponed by a year. As well as a long-awaited opportunity to introduce some new, exciting offerings to the market face to face, we were looking forward to meeting up with clients and industry colleagues. While we fully understand the organisers’ decision, given the uncertainty about how the pandemic will unfold over the next few months, it should be remembered that there are still many ways to explore, test and compare (and ultimately invest in) high speed inkjet technology.
Now is in fact a very good time to take a close look at inkjet as economic activity starts to pick up again across much of Europe. This is especially so as analogue printing technology, which has long maintained its dominant market share, particularly for high volume applications, thanks to its attractive quality, cost and performance combination, is in decline. The drivers for this decline are also the drivers which are providing greater opportunities for digital (including most notably inkjet) print technologies to deliver a more cost effective production choice.
Smithers’ Future of Print Equipment Markets to 2026 report sales of analogue equipment will fall at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of -1.9% between 2022 and 2026. This, it says, is being led by drops in high volume publication work such as magazines, newspapers, catalogues and directories.
It is a shift that was already underway before the pandemic but has since been accelerated.
Powering its momentum are two key drivers:
1 Decreased run lengths
From 2015 to 2019 magazine, catalogue, and newspaper circulations fell significantly reports Smithers, Impact of Changing Run Lengths on the Printing Market. Printed volume dropped from 23.8 trillion A4 prints to 21.1 trillion largely due to consumer migration to online. This trend is forecast to continue at an increasing rate.
2 Mass customisation
Demand for customised printing has increased to meet growth in hyper relevant, carefully targeted, and individualised content. It also enables the addition of printed interactive elements such as QR and AR codes that elevate engagement and add value.
Both will help digital print lift its relative share of print output.
This global increase in digital print is expected to be at a CAGR of 6.45% between 2021 to 2026 according to market research consulting firm Mordor Intelligence. It echoed Smithers’ view that among the buoyant sectors benefiting from on demand, fast, affordable, high quality results, are direct mail, catalogues, brochures, books, and transactional work. Another energised application is marketing and promotional campaigns, where using data driven printing such as customised content and images is at the heart of engaging creativity.
At the WhatTheyThink Print Production Outlook: Tracking the Turning Points webinar, German Sacristan, director, Print On Demand Service, Keypoint Intelligence, stated data had shown that digital print run lengths are now on the rise. 28% of Keypoint Intelligence respondents surveyed expected their run lengths to grow between 1%–9% over the next two years. 17% expect run lengths to grow between 10% and 20%.
Direct Mail was the application expected to grow the most over the next two years, with 75% expecting an increase and 22% anticipating an uplift of 25% or more. Books were second, with 90% expecting volumes to increase – 20% by 25% or more.
Other applications expected to grow 25% or more included catalogues and booklets (12%), posters, banners, signage (11%), magazines (10%), business cards (4%), and brochures (3%).
Keypoint Intelligence predicts colour digital printing volume will grow as the shift from analogue to digital continues. It will be spearheaded by inkjet systems that handle high quality, longer runs productively and cost effectively and, as such, inkjet’s global market share will increase 13.6% CAGR between 2020 and 2025.
Responsive inkjet solutions that are flexible and adaptable to changing market demands will prove essential to capitalising on this opportunity. So don’t wait until February 2023 to investigate how high speed inkjet can support your print business – staying relevant, agile and fit for the future.
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