In its first Global Trends Report the world’s biggest print show drupa says that the printing industry globally is planning increased investment over the next twelve months.
Efficiency gains and the development of new services are driving investment in the industrialised countries. North America is leading the way by gearing up for major transformation with high levels of investment in printing technology, IT and new services. In the emerging countries growing demand is the main driver.
Despite reporting significant regional variations, the drupa Global Trends report does reveal a number of critical – and sometimes surprising – trends that are shared by all economic regions and across print segments (publishing, packaging and commercial). As was to be expected, the report confirmed that the global printing industry’s structural transformation is still ongoing, with increasing costs coupled with declining prices and shrinking margins.
The Global Trends report also revealed that as expected, digital printing plays an increasing role in the technology mix deployed. Among print services providers, some 65 per cent now produce using both conventional and digital methods and one-third of commercial printers already gain a quarter or more of their turnover from digital printing. But conventional printing (especially sheetfed offset) continues to be an important pillar for the print sector. Planned investment reflects this point as 29 per cent of all printers say they intend to invest in sheetfed offset printing.
Werner Dornscheidt, the president and CEO of Messe Düsseldorf “Thanks to these two report series, drupa is able to offer first-rate, representative market data and information that will enable the market players – be they providers of print services, suppliers or print purchasers – to make better strategic decisions. In addition the reports will allow variations between the world’s major economic regions to be analysed. Finally the insights gained will serve to further improve drupa’s positioning.’
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This first drupa Global Trends report provides an initial assessment of the state of the global print industry In order to monitor the trends going forward, the survey will be repeated in the fourth quarter each year. In parallel drupa will publish a series of Global Insight reports that will offer detailed analysis into specific industry-relevant topics. An Insights report on “The Impact of the Internet on Print” will kick off the series in June of 2014. The objective will be to show the effects of the Internet on e-commerce, digital marketing, mass customisation and IT on the world of print and illustrate how future strategies and business models need to adapt.
Some 2,500 decision-makers from across the globe (119 countries) participated in the survey in the fourth quarter of 2013 and answered the extensive questionnaire. The majority (58 per cent) came from print services providers, followed by suppliers (21 per cent%) and print purchasers (21 per cent).
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