Market Report
The Future of Print Equipment Markets to 2028
Major change for print equipment markets
(Leatherhead, Surrey, UK) August 10, 2023
Smithers latest analysis shows stability returning to the world market for printing presses and other equipment, with sales set to reach $16.79 billion in 2023.
Exclusive data and forecasting available to purchase now in the Smithers market study – The Future of Print Equipment Markets to 2028 – show a post-Covid marketplace reacting to profound changes in demand for print. At constant pricing, the annual sales of new presses, including pre- and post-press equipment, has lost $2.37 billion since 2018.
A further moderate decline is forecast for the coming five years with per annum sales declining (-0.5% year-on-year) to reach $16.41 billion in 2028, at constant prices.
The decline is most evident in developed markets – North America, Western Europe, Japan, and Australasia – where the transition to electronic media and communication is most advanced. Press sales alone in these four markets combined will be $6.11 billion in 2028; a -19% reduction compared to 2018.
Smithers analysis segments historic, current, and future new equipment sales and installed base, by print process and machine format, across 58 countries.
These data illustrate that as publication and graphics printing sales drop, demand for most traditional analogue press types will follow. The greatest fall off in sales will be for litho presses. In particular, the outlook for heatset and coldset machines has been impacted by a radical drop in demand for printed magazines and newspapers respectively. Offset litho will also lose sales volume over the forecast period, although this is partly due to installations of more high capacity very large format (VLF) presses, and a contracting base of smaller B1, B2, and B3 formats.
Flexo, will be the only analog print process to increase equipment sales over the next five years – due mainly to its popularity in higher volume packaging and label work.
Inkjet and electrophotography (toner) equipment sales will increase, and in 2026 new sales of such digital print systems will overtake analog for the first time. Inkjet will account for the vast majority of this increase. It is the focus for much R&D work, multiple higher throughput presses for specific end-use segments in packaging are now seeing their first installations. Speed and quality on inkjet are improving, while buyers demand for more customized and shorter run commissions will see these take more jobs from analog.
In 2028 Smithers estimates the installed base for high-end single-pass inkjet will exceed 3,800; up from a projected 3,048 in 2023, and 1,998 in 2018. The number of operational sheetfed inkjet presses is increasing even faster; forecast to be 3,276 in 2028, this is up from 1,451 in 2023, and just 385 in 2018.
From a technical perspective, improvements in automation will continue to be seen on all press types, including integration with online platforms. As the supply chain evolves, print OEMs can tap new revenue with smart software and support services, helping operators maximize up time on their presses, resolve faults quicker, and optimize on-press performance.
High oil and gas prices have stimulated interest in more energy-efficient press equipment. These will help reduce the carbon footprint of the print segment, alongside a suite of other green technologies – improvements in set-up, aqueous inks and coatings, better substrate handling for paperboard grades, inks formulated with more bio-based ingredients, and optimization for better deinking at end-of life.
Despite shifts in geographic demand for print media, the US will remain the single largest market for new equipment sales, ahead of China (second), Japan (third), the UK (fourth), and Germany (fifth) place. There are high-growth opportunities for OEM sales in new markets in Asia; but no major changes among the top ranked countries will happen across the next five years.
The Future of Print Equipment Markets to 2028 provides unparallel detail on the installed base, current and future sales for print equipment worldwide. Its expert analysis of the contemporary commercial landscape is quantified in an exclusive data set with over 150 tables and figures. This segments the 2018-2028 market by:
- 29 press types and equipment formats
- 8 world regions
- 58 leading national markets.