Marco Boer, Vice President of Boston-based IT Strategies consultants, set the pace for the 20th anniversary edition IMI Europe Digital Printing Conference at The Courtyard by Marriott City Center Berlin. “The irrevocable change in the word of commercial printing” read the presentation he gave to the about 60 delegates. They have come to Berlin from all over the world, and from world-renowned corporations like Agfa, Fujifilm, Heidelberg, HP, Land Digital Printing, Océ, Ricoh, Samsung, Sensient, Sun Chemicals and Tetra Pak.
Marco´s presentation was based on US numbers only, but what he had to tell the audience about the was sobering: The number of print service (PSPs) as a whole is shrinking at an alarming pace of about 3% per year, and this time, digital print PSPs are no longer the exception. While these numbers and outlook fit with the findings that Bernd Zipper (Zipcon Consulting) gave earlier this year at the Online Print Symposium Munich, Boer mentioned that while Web2Print is often considered a viable way into future for the printing industry, in fact electronic communication is going to eat away even more of their run-length. Still, Boer pointed out that, contrary to a long-hatched industry believe, digital printing, having become so much of a commonplace today, that even the segmentation between digital and analogue PSPs has become pointless, will not even long-term replace Offset. Short and medium run offset will however remain a digitals target. IT Strategies estimates the global PSP´s non-office document revenue from 2016 to 2018 as about 20 Mrd. US-$.

For the global Digital Industrial & Production Print Markets, including 3D and direct to shape digital printing as well as labels, corrugated, electronics, display graphics and decorative surfaces, the consultants estimate an 21% growth for the period between 2017 and 2021. While certainly impressive, this seems nowhere near the numbers that were going round in the industry for years. Event Organizer and IMI Europe Managing Director Tim Phillips in his brief introduction to the event mentioned that “the uptake of industrial inkjet was slower than expected”, still a growing number of high-profile industry players implement inkjet in their portfolio, usually for sample or short to medium run production.

An Industry Networking Event

The Digital Printing Conference Berlin was the last in a number of IMI Europe Events from October 7th to 10th, all at the same place. With the Inkjet Academy focused on technology for an expert audience, Market Reports Live and Mergers & Acquisitions dedicated to marketing and management executives, the Conference featured a number of high-profile technical, strategical and marketing presentations as well as prominently hosted panels on industry topics like Heidelberger Druckmaschinen ´s Senior Vice President Monterrat Peidro-Insa`s Packaging panel, including a Drupa 2020 outlook. Marcus Timson (Ex-Fespa, Imprint show, now Director FM Future) hosted a panel looking into the future of industrial inkjet. He also gave a presentation about the topic.
While somehow creating a condensed overview in the inkjet markets from a technological as well as strategic perspective, regular refreshment breaks as well as an evening reception in October 9th offered a lot of opportunity for networking at senior level.

Looking Into The Future

While some of the more technology-centered speakers, for example Mike Willis` (Pivotal Resources) presentation on “The world of inkjet innovation as seen from patents” might be less interesting for PSP marketing, development and management executives, some of the strategic insights certainly provided valuable business information to this clientele. “Wide Format Print Trend and Innovations” for example, held by Bob Leahey, Director Color Digital Label and Packaging at Keypoint Intelligence / Info Trends, gave much-sought after numbers for the global wide format print volume. By 2023, the consultant estimates, it will have reached 3.1 Mrd. square-metres worldwide, growing from 2019 1.1% each year. While solvent inks already are on steep decline that will result in -28,8% by 2023 , Sublimation and Latex Inks will see a moderate increase, while UV-curing inks will take the lion´s share of print runs, growing 7.1% by 2023. Interestingly enough, aqueous ink production, even with all the recent efforts to establish them for production print, might be near stagnant in its share of wide format print production run-length, growing only by 1,3%.
Leahey presented some more numbers from the worldwide 2018 FESPA print census. While it is highly advised to take them with a grain of salt, as the total number of 1,405 in relatively small, and with some focus on PSPs from UK, Greece, Mexico and South Africa, as the biggest numbers of total entries originate from there, some interesting figures came to light: Already two-thirds of Sign and Display Graphics Businesses own wide format printing equipment. Also, more that 55% have already invested in fabric printers. Packaging seems to still provide some interesting niches, as only a third of the companies that answered the 2018 FESPA print census own this kind of equipment. But then, 43% don´t plan to invest into this particular segment in the future, which might be hint that, while packaging might prove a promising line of business, the wide format industry has not yet fully embraced or found a revenue stream within it.

Kenneth Stack from Proximus LLC in his presentation “The Changing Landscape of Industrial Digital Printing” added yet another perspective. As “Buy Side and Sell Side Advisors” he pointed up some findings that normally go rather undetected by the wide industry audience, as the growing influence of Private Equity. With EFI the most prominent example, having been acquired by Siris and taken private, the company had to very considerably lower its Revenue and Earnings Guidance for 2019. While start-ups in the digital printing industry have almost completely dried up, commercial relationships as well as the forming of new entities like Durst Koenig & Bauer is rising in numbers. While Stack sees that as the whole development as a “healthy sign for the industry”, for PSPs this may also raise some question about the security of their long-term investments, as any change in company landscape tends to cause problems with product and service continuity.

Where Do We Go from Here?

As it is to expected with the high-profile presenters at IMI Europe Digital Printing Conference, the conference gave valuable insights on the latest industry trends. It seems sad though, that PSPs were almost complete absent, and delegates as well as presenters from Eastern Europe were largely absent. The substantial registration fees might play a part in this. 2020 IMI Europe is going to offer some new events, including practical inks characterization course, and a conference dedicated to Large-Area Electronics.

https://imieurope.com

About the author:

Sonja Angerer is a trade journalist to the digital printing, promotional gifts and sign making industry. She was editor in chief to German trade magazine Large Format until January 2019, and is now Head of Content at mypromo.com, as well a contributor to mayor European websites and trade magazines.

Photo: Roland Schmid

The Polish version was published in January 2020 issue of "Świat DRUKU"