VERPACKEN-AKTUELL

7th drupa Global Trends Report

Global print industry faces economic and environmental challenges

09. April 2020, von Dr. Klaus Bremer

Print volume changes by market. Infographic by Messe Düsseldorf.

Quelle: Messe Düsseldorf

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Print volume changes by market. Infographic by Messe Düsseldorf.

Quelle: Messe Düsseldorf

The 7th dru­pa Glob­al Trends Re­port will be pub­lished in April 2020. The re­sults, from a sur­vey con­duct­ed be­fore the out­break of the coro­na virus and the post­pone­ment of dru­pa to April 2021, show a glob­al in­dus­try that re­mained pos­i­tive but re­flect­ed more chal­leng­ing glob­al eco­nom­ic con­di­tions. Pack­ag­ing and Func­tion­al mar­ket sec­tors are bet­ter placed than Pub­lish­ing and Com­mer­cial. North Amer­i­ca re­mains buoy­ant but con­fi­dence has slipped in Eu­rope and across all oth­er re­gions. De­vel­op­ing re­gions are held back by con­cerns about po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty and cor­rup­tion, while de­vel­oped re­gions are ner­vous of an in­evitable cycli­cal eco­nom­ic down­turn. There is con­stant pres­sure on mar­gins but in­creas­ing­ly the bet­ter com­pa­nies counter this by con­tin­u­al in­no­va­tion. In­vest­ment plans re­main strong, as print­ers and sup­pli­ers all recog­nise the need to re­main com­pet­i­tive.

The find­ings come from the 7th ma­jor an­nu­al sur­vey is­sued last No­vem­ber to the dru­pa Ex­pert Pan­el of se­nior de­ci­sion tak­ers re­cruit­ed from print­ers and ex­hibitors at dru­pa 2016 and run by Print­fu­ture (UK) and Wissler & Part­ner (CH). Al­most 600 print­ers and al­most 200 sup­pli­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed with all re­gions well rep­re­sent­ed.

Glob­al­ly 17% more print­ers de­scribed their com­pa­ny’s eco­nom­ic con­di­tion as ‘good’ com­pared with those who re­port­ed it as ‘poor’. For sup­pli­ers the net pos­i­tive bal­ance was even stronger at +32%. How­ev­er, there is a clear trend with con­fi­dence peak­ing in 2017 af­ter the long slow re­cov­ery fol­low­ing the 2007/8 re­ces­sion and a more cau­tious ap­proach de­vel­op­ing since. As al­ways, con­di­tions vary be­tween mar­kets and re­gions.

The Pack­ag­ing mar­ket sec­tor thrives best with Func­tion­al, Com­mer­cial and Pub­lish­ing fol­low­ing in that or­der. In­deed, an in­creas­ing num­ber of Com­mer­cial and Pub­lish­ing print­ers are at­tempt­ing to di­ver­si­fy into the oth­er two mar­kets. Fi­nan­cial mea­sures con­firm these trends with mar­gins strug­gling in all mar­ket sec­tors, but Pub­lish­ing show­ing the clear­est ev­i­dence of ac­tive de­cline in rev­enues.

North Amer­i­ca stands out as buoy­ant over the whole sev­en years of the dru­pa Glob­al Trends Re­ports. Eu­rope showed in­creas­ing con­fi­dence un­til 2018 but has de­clined since, while all oth­er re­gions are in de­cline. Sup­pli­ers’ for­tunes fol­low those of their cus­tomers both re­gion­al­ly and by mar­ket, al­though in many cas­es they have the ad­van­tage of serv­ing a wider range of mar­kets and re­gions.

For sev­er­al years print­ers have re­spond­ed to the con­stant pres­sure on mar­gins by in­creas­ing turnover and keep­ing costs to a min­i­mum. Sabine Gel­der­mann, Di­rec­tor dru­pa and Glob­al Head Print Tech­nolo­gies at Messe Düs­sel­dorf, com­ment­ed: “In­creas­ing­ly we are see­ing clear ev­i­dence that whilst cost re­duc­ing steps will con­tin­ue, print­ers are recog­nis­ing the need to in­no­vate – by launch­ing new prod­ucts and ser­vices in their ex­ist­ing mar­kets or by en­ter­ing new mar­kets.”

Hence, in­vest­ment plans re­main strong with more print­ers in all re­gions re­port­ing they will raise cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture next year than those re­port­ing a de­crease. Again, the bal­ance of those in­creas­ing in­vest­ment by mar­ket was pos­i­tive for all, but strongest in Pack­ag­ing then Func­tion­al, Com­mer­cial and fi­nal­ly Pub­lish­ing.

Fin­ish­ing is the most pop­u­lar in­vest­ment tar­get fol­lowed by Print tech­nol­o­gy and then Pre­Press/Workflow/MIS. While fin­ish­ing plans vary too great­ly to al­low any fore­cast­ing, we can com­ment on planned Print tech­nol­o­gy in­vest­ments. Dig­i­tal ton­er cut­sheet colour is most pop­u­lar, fol­lowed by Sheetfed off­set, but there are sig­nif­i­cant vari­a­tions by mar­ket.

Richard Gray, Op­er­a­tions Di­rec­tor at Print­fu­ture, stat­ed: “For the first time we asked specif­i­cal­ly about the broad­er so­cio-economic pres­sures and there were two clear pat­terns re­port­ed across the globe. For the de­vel­oped re­gions the fo­cus was con­cern about the risk of, or re­al­i­ty of, eco­nom­ic re­ces­sion in the coun­try or re­gion, fol­lowed by con­cern about glob­al trade wars and the im­pact of glob­al warm­ing/environmental pres­sures. For the de­vel­op­ing re­gions, it was cor­rup­tion and po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic re­ces­sion that dom­i­nat­ed. Clear­ly, we must now add the im­pact of the coro­na virus, a con­cern for all which, how­ev­er, is not yet rep­re­sent­ed by the re­port.”

The in­dus­try coped with the last se­vere re­ces­sion and will cope well enough with a glob­al slow­down, even though now it will be ex­ag­ger­at­ed by the im­pact of the coro­na virus. The cru­cial dif­fer­ence is that, in most mar­kets, the in­dus­try has adapt­ed their busi­ness mod­els to the chal­lenge of dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tions. In­vest­ment is the key to keep­ing ahead of the curve.

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