Drupa releases 4th annual global trends report 2017
23
Feb '17
Courtesy: Drupa
Drupa, the largest printing equipment exhibition in the world, held by Messe Düsseldorf, in Germany, has released its 4th annual global trends report, which gives the detailed evidence to support the thesis that globally print is recovering well from the double challenge of the 2007/8 economic crisis and the strategic shift towards digital communications.
Recruited from senior managers who visited Drupa last year, almost 850 printers and over 300 suppliers representing all regions and markets participated in the survey run by Printfuture, the specialist print consultancy and market research company, according to the report.
Globally 42 per cent of printers described their business as in a ‘good’ economic condition in 2016, with just 11 per cent reporting it as ‘poor’, a net balance of +31 per cent, the highest recorded global result of the report series. Prospects for 2017 are better with a net balance of +46 per cent.
However market variances and regional variances are growing. Packaging at +39 per cent net balance and functional (industrial/decorative) at +34 per cent are strongest while commercial at +26 per cent and publishing at 23 per cent follow behind. North America once again is the strongest region with a net balance of +49 per cent, followed by Europe and Australia/Oceania at +33 per cent, Central/South America at +29 per cent, Asia at +20 per cent, the Middle East at 19 per cent, and Africa at -3 per cent, the first negative net balance of the report series. Indeed on many measures, the Middle East reported a very poor condition, while Africa and Central/South America reported fragile conditions.
Looking at the underlying financial performance figures, printers reported a well-established pattern of falling prices and squeezed margins, compensated for by increasing revenues assisted by higher utilisation. In terms of conventional print, the well-established trends continued of falling run lengths and lead times and an increasing number of jobs to be handled.
There was a possible pause in the historic rise in the proportion of turnover that is digital print (28 per cent of printers in 2015 reported that more than 25 per cent of their turnover was digital while the figure for 2016 was 27 per cent). Similarly digital continues to grow rapidly in Commercial print e.g. wide format print installations up from 37 per cent in 2013 to 50 per cent in 2016.
Even more striking was the clear fall in the number of web to print installations globally down from 26 per cent in 2015 to 23 per cent in 2016. Turning to capital investment plans, 42 per cent spent more over the last 12 months and just 11 per cent spent less, a net balance of +31 per cent, and there was a net balance of +41 per cent in respect of plans for 2017. (GK)
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