NEWS

(11/19/2012 / atz)

Western European Digital Production Printing Application Forecast 2011-2016

InfoTrends, the leading worldwide market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry, has recently published The Western European Digital Production Printing Application Forecast 2011-2016. InfoTrends sees a clear shift away from traditional applications in digital production printing.

Print is driven by applications and digital production printing is no exception. Demand for certain applications, however, changes over time due to various reasons, such as growth in usage, electronic replacement, and moves to shorter runs. The change in demand will have a profound impact on digital printing in competition with other processes as well as between product groups.

 

InfoTrends’ Western European Digital Production Printing Application Forecast: 2011-2016 details application volumes and volume growth for 28 print applications in seven main application groups for Western Europe from 2011 to 2016. To complete the application forecast, InfoTrends’ consulting staff conducted primary and secondary research in the marketplace. The underlying print volume forecast is based on various print volume forecast data provided by InfoTrends.

 

According to the InfoTrends digital print forecast the digital print volume in Western Europe is expected to grow with an average growth rate of 4% per year only. Much of the surprisingly low growth is owed to the fact that black & white print volumes are declining although good growth in colour impressions is more than compensating for the decline. While some digital print applications are in decline others are expected to outgrow that average rate quite noticeably.

InfoTrends sees a clear shift in the market away from some traditional applications in transaction and utility print towards promotional and publishing print. In addition, some emerging segments, such as packaging and consumer print, show rapid growth rates, although starting sometimes from a very low level. Photo merchandise printing is almost an established application for digital printing today, while digital printing has merely a foothold in the various packaging segments so far. It will remain critical for industry suppliers and equipment users to adjust to the changes in the market. While even shrinking markets can offer profitable niches, growth sector promise better opportunities and long term commitment from suppliers.

The top ten of the fastest growing applications is dominated by publishing and promotional applications. Compared to analogue volumes the share of digital printing in most publishing and promotional applications is small, but shorter runs and on demand production is shifting volumes towards digital print. The application with by far the biggest gain in pages is books, especially benefitting from these trends. Newspapers, brochures, catalogues, and magazines are expected to record very high gains as well. Direct mail is already one of the biggest applications for digital printing, but better targeting will account for more growth here as well. InfoTrends recommends that industry suppliers target hardware development and product features towards these growing applications. However, markets do still exist in declining applications and can be exploited with niche or cash cow strategies.

InfoTrends’ Western European Digital Production Printing Application Forecast: 2011-2016 gives an overview on how the mix of digital production printing applications produced in the future will differ from the ones produced today.