The global tactile printing market will grow from US$1.2bn to US$1.9bn over the next five years, a 60 per cent increase, according to a new report by BCC Research.
The report predicts the tactile printing market will be growing at a CAGR of 10.3 per cent, with that the growth will come on the back of the growing market for innovative packaging, especially as markets seek to diversity their product lines, and use unconventional and out-of-the-ordinary packaging to grab a consumer’s attention.
The report says advancing from growth in the printing industry’s key applications, packaging printing, label making, and security and secure documentation, the market for tactile and dimensional printing is expected to see robust growth; in select sub segments and regions the technology is even reaching double-digit growth.
Robert Eckard, report author says, “In consumer markets that are increasingly saturated in myriad products, consumer products and goods companies are increasingly looking to differentiate their products, in whatever means is available to them.
“Where a product’s packaging can more wholly engage a potential purchaser through tactile elements, this can be a competitive edge for one product over another. Sensory marketing was born of this consumer preference for pleasing tactile elements in packaging.”
Emerging technologies include touchable ink and 3D printing. Touchable ink can be loaded into standard home printers and, when heated, rises into a bumpy touchable surface; this technology has the ability to upset the traditional braille printing industry. Once 3D printing markets fully commercialize, that technology could also be used to tactile printing.
The study says technology leaders delivering the means to produce tactile printing include Agfa, Canon, Enabling Technologies, Fuji Xerox, Heidelberg, HP, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Kyocera and ViewPlus Technologies.
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