On the back of the biggest Fespa exhibition to date the organisation is backing the wide format sector to continue its soaraway growth trajectory
Fespa ran last week in Cologne and half way through the fourth day had already attracted more visitors than the previous show held in 2013, despite a German train strike curtailing access to the event.
It also saw more than two thirds of visitors come from outside Germany, a record, and more than 50 per cent of its visitors stayed for more than one day, another record sent tumbling.
Among the large Aussie contingent Next Printing took home a silver award in the paper and board point-of-sale category.
To coincide with the show Fespa released the results from its global survey, which it said pointed to an ever brighter future for the sector. Specifically the research highlighted industry optimism, with a whopping 80 per cent either optimistic of very optimistic about the future, with the optimism based on solid revenue growth, Overall revenue growth from 2007 to 2015 was averaging about 9 per cent CAGR for the overall business, and 7 per cent for digital wide format.
Customer demands are driving continued efforts to improve efficiency, enabling faster job turnaround, just-in-time delivery, delivery to the point of need, and versioning/personalisation. At least 70 per cent of respondents expect these four key customer trends to increase or stay the same, reinforcing the notion that today’s print businesses are now customer-service driven.
Banners (49 per cent), posters (40 per cent), signs (38 per cent) and billboards (37 per cent) remain the top four products being produced by respondents.
A dramatic growth being experienced is in textiles for garments, textiles for décor and packaging samples, with close to 80 per cent of respondents reporting an increase in demand for these applications.
Respondents report increased adoption of digital production for many of these products, with garments, decals and printed electronics most frequently predicted to migrate to digital in the future.
The changing applications mix is also reflected in the rise of rigid materials, which now represent 25 per cent of output among respondents.
Over half of all Fespa Print Census respondents indicated their intent to buy digital wide format printing equipment, with a mean spending plan of close to Euro100,000.
Purchasing plans are dominated by UV printers (27 per cent), textile printers (21 per cent), solvent printers (17 per cent), eco-solvent printers (16 per cent) and latex printers (14 per cent). Contour cutters and laminators top respondents’ planned acquisitions in finishing.
The majority of those investing (45 per cent) are motivated to do so by the move into new markets with new products or services.
Investment is also driven by the desire to enhance print quality (43 per cent), increase capacity (37 per cent), improve output speed (34 per cent) and reduce unit costs (33 per cent).
Textile is the dominant growth application among Print Census respondents. 27 per cent are already involved in garment printing, with 81 per cent seeing growth in this segment, the highest of any growth application. Digital is a key enabler here, with over half of respondents expecting digitally produced garments to become an important alternative to traditional screen printing in the next two years.
Textile printers feature prominently among investment plans, with 21 per cent of respondents specifically focusing spend in this area, supported by 12 per cent planning to acquire thermal transfer equipment. Decorative and industrial textile applications also feature heavily, with 78 per cent of those surveyed reporting growth in textiles for décor applications. Textile substrates continue to make inroads in the signage and graphics space, with 67 per cent observing sustained growth in soft signage.
More than three quarters of respondents expect live media and LCD screen advertising to impact the wide format business in the foreseeable future, with 36 per cent of respondents stating that these technologies are already impacting the business. Some 31 per cent of those surveyed plan to offer digital signage solutions to their customer base in the next 12 months.
More than 1200 respondents worldwide fully completed the extensive survey between May 2014 and April 2015. Some 50 per cent of respondents were from the Americas, 42 per cent from Europe and 8 per cent from the Asia Pacific region.
Respondents represent the full spectrum of print businesses, including screen and digital printers (34 per cent); commercial, quick printers and reprographic shops (15 per cent); sign makers (13 per cent); graphic designers (7 per cent); advertising agencies (5 per cent); and others.
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