Current status of printing industry in 2019 (Equipment suppliers)

Haoly Machine

Equipment suppliers have low margins and sales increase, and sheetfed offset still dominates
The survey of equipment suppliers shows that sales have increased, but profits are obviously meager. Although the proportion of digital printing sales has increased, sheetfed offset printing is still the most commonly used printing technology, and 66% of printing companies still use sheetfed offset printing technology. The total amount of sheetfed offset printing continued to grow in the packaging and printing sector, but for the first time in commercial printing there was a significant reduction.
Equipment investment is biased towards positive, investment expects post-press processing to take the lead
In terms of investment expenditure, the overall performance of printing companies is positive: 41% of printing companies have increased their investment costs in 2017 compared to 2017, and only 15% of printing companies have reduced their investment. In addition to Africa, total investment spending in other regions of the world has increased.
In 2019, the investment target of printing companies was the post-press processing, followed by printing technology and pre-press workflow. In terms of printing technology, single-color digital printing technology is the investment direction that has been mentioned in almost all markets. Only packaging printing is an exception. Sheetfed offset printing is the investment focus of packaging and printing companies. The application of digital printing in the packaging field has only increased by 5% (except label printing, digital printing has reached 40% in label applications).
Other aspects, such as the total amount of network printing, have increased moderately. Compared with 2014, more printing companies introduced online printing in 2018, the proportion increased from 17% to 23%, but the proportion of orders from online printing remained unchanged, and the results of the two-year survey were 25%.