As per a report by SmithesPira, the global printing industry is set to reach $980 billion by 2018 with packaging and labels and not graphic applications being the growth engines of the vertical. The report also highlights that digital printing will be the next harbinger of revenue growth for the industry replacing analogue printing.

The report findings don’t come as a surprise as the sector is being constantly infused with state of the art technologies and with printing vendors investing heavily on the R&D wing. The advent of digital printing in the industrial label and packaging segment to meet the end to end printing requirements of businesses is another technological milestone for the industry.

Digital Printing is the way forward

Consider a market like India where the printing segment is highly fragmented and is still dominated by analogue printing and legacy printing technologies in the industrial printing domain. With an increased demand for high volumes and precision printing outputs, digital industrial printing will prove to be a boon for the industry in India.

While the conventional printing across the globe has taken a toll with the arrival of e-books, digital readers and online magazines and news papers, the packaging and label printing segment is rapidly witnessing an increased demand. The growth numbers are too in favour of digital printing wherein the share of digital printing in the global printing industry is expected to

touch 19.7 percent by 2018,from a mere 9.5 percent in the year 2008.

The share of Digital Printing is further expected to swell to 38.1 percent by the year 2018, if packaging is excluded as per the report by Smithes Pira. The sector is also expected to slowly witness a tactical market shift in terms of demands where in emerging markets like India, Mexico, Brazil will replace the mature markets like USA in the coming times.

The increasing demanding for pocket friendly & high quality printing solutions which will push the printing machine vendors to aggressively focus on cost effective & customised printing machines

China has already replaced the USA in the year 2015, coming as the biggest printer market in terms of volumes. The future market war among the printing vendors however will be all about innovation in technologies and high precision outputs and the change has already begun.

Home printing segment will witness a significant surge

With printers in the home segment getting affordable with each passing day coupled with booming PC penetration in the country,the home segment printer market is expected to witness a multi-fold growth in the coming years. The demand however will continue to be driven majorly by printers in the B/W category.

3D Printing to bolster customisation

3D printing will fetch organisations an upper hand in the competitive market owing to highly customised products. Products will be tailored, customised and 3D printed exactly as per the customer’s demand and will be delivered to their doorstep. While at first Industry verticals such as healthcare and fashion merchandise are expected to leverage the 3D printing technology extensively, which will then gradually spread to other key industry verticals.

Efficiency will propel demand and sales growth

Consumers, primarily in the home segment are increasingly demanding for pocket friendly yet high quality printing solutions which will push the printing machine vendors to aggressively focus on cost effective printing machines tailored specifically for consumers in the home segment. This will also intensify the competition in the printing market where in the consumer will emerge as the king. In the industrial printing segment the focus will be primarily on coming up with printing solutions which offer high quality outputs while consuming the least amount of power.