American sheetfed printing ink market status

In 2005, the US sheetfed printing market faced numerous difficulties. At the same time, sheet-fed ink manufacturers also suffered tremendous pressure.

In 2005, the US commercial printing market continued its declining trend beginning in 2001. This has caused the US sheetfed printing ink market to be greatly affected.

full of challenge

According to a survey by the NAPIM (Printing Ink Manufacturers Association of America), despite a slight increase in ink consumption, the ink market continued to decline in the first three quarters of 2005, and the price of ink fell all the way to just a few consecutive international disasters. After the occurrence, the ink market price rose due to the shortage of raw materials and fuel.

Although sales of sheetfed packaging printing inks have also decreased, profits have continued to increase, and commercial sheetfed printing inks have exhibited the exact opposite case. The performance of the Toyo Ink Group in the US market reflects this situation, even though Compared with 2004, sales of sheetfed printing inks increased by 10% in 2005, but sales did not change. The increase in sales volume was due to the large number of printers who introduced new highs in 2005 in order to increase printing output. Performance sheetfed presses, and thus demand for consumables such as inks also began to increase

According to experts' predictions, the sheetfed printing ink market will still be challenged in the next few years. As the sheet-fed printing market intensifies, the printing production cost will continue to increase, and a large number of printing companies will go bankrupt. It is expected that commercial printing presses The installed capacity will continue to decrease. In addition, the competition from overseas printing companies and digital printing technology also makes the North American commercial printing market outlook is not optimistic, which is not good news for sheetfed printing inks.

Difficulties in raising prices

The sheetfed printing industry is facing a situation of excess productivity. This situation is not uncommon in the ink manufacturing industry. This makes sheet-fed printing ink manufacturers lack of confidence in raising the price of ink products.

Bonnie Van Camp, marketing manager of Rainbow Inks, understands the hardships of the printing companies. He said: “The market is connected. Printing companies do not want ink prices to rise because they cannot raise prices for their products. Therefore, we need to implement price increases. It has been an extremely difficult period." This is why many ink companies prefer to continue to keep their profits from rising without increasing their prices.

This is particularly true in the sheet-fed printing ink market. As an essential component of sheetfed printing inks, the prices of crude oil, natural gas and other raw materials have soared in the past year and a half. This has resulted in the cost of sheetfed printing inks. A major shock Although ink prices have risen, they have not exceeded the increase in raw materials.

Encounter digital printing

Due to the existence of markets such as short print jobs, digital printing is increasingly becoming one of the most threatening competitors for sheetfed printing.

From drupa 2004 and Print 05 exhibitions, we can see that digital printing will gain more room for development in the foreseeable future. Traditional printers must make new choices for future printing methods.

Some industry sources predict that the commercial printing market will be reduced by 5% to 7% over the next five years. At the same time, the digital printing market will grow by at least 5%. CTP and other digital prepress technologies are the best promoters of digital printing. Digital printing has brought more scale-integrated adjustments to the production of sheet-fed printing inks. The value of digital printing has increased year by year. It has replaced some of the traditional printing and is also constantly improving the printing industry with the continuous deepening of digital printing. It will become more and more important for the industry to provide diversified services. Many printing companies gradually provide full services involving areas such as commercial packaging and digital printing.

For sheet-fed printing ink manufacturers, the diversification of printing services requires the provision of personalized products through research and development or through direct collaboration with printing companies to meet the needs of customers.

There are already many paper-fed printing ink makers grasping this market trend: Sun Chemical has been developing dual-purpose inks for sheetfed printing and digital ink-jet printing, which gives the company sufficient toughness in the market; Toyo Ink In the past 20 years, the Group has invested heavily in the research and development of ink products in the digital technology field. They believe that digital printing can coexist with traditional printing, such as combination printing, that is, the printing of the main image area is completed on a sheet-fed printing press and personalized printing. Then on the digital press

Strengthen value services

Although sheet-fed printing ink companies have taken measures to close some regional distribution stores to make up for the loss of profits, facing the increasingly finicky eyes of printing companies, ink companies have begun to consider the following: How to maintain the balance between service and profit in the market of production cost

Some ink companies have already started to adjust existing services, trying to provide valuable services by improving service quality, so that customers understand that the services they provide are in line with product prices. Currently, more and more printing companies have begun to In the purchase of ink, we pay attention to the combination of ink performance and printing process, not just based on the purchase price of ink. The printing manufacturer knows that: Choosing the right ink for printing, the product may exceed the customer's expectations and get unexpected results.

At the same time, the closure of large ink company regional distribution stores has given new ink opportunities to small ink manufacturers. Some large companies often competed in 2 or 3 branches in one area. After closing down some regional distribution stores, there are The development of small-sized ink production companies that are conducive to localization in the local market

Constantly introducing new products

Sheet-fed printing ink manufacturers have developed a series of new products to help their customers succeed in a highly competitive market

Flint Group's Arrowstar UV Series Ink Group's new VOC (Volatile Organic Compound)-based UV ink has received a lot of attention from the Kohl & Madden's Liberty ink released by Sun Chemical Group, not only VOC-free, but also The drying time on the substrate is also quite short

Wikoff Color has also launched a series of best-selling ink products, such as fast-drying Hyperset inks for commercial printing, cold-duty work & turn inks for sheet-fed packaging printing, which have excellent ink and gloss at the same time. , also introduced a new water-based ink for milk packaging printing, as well as liquid printing inks that can improve printing performance and high-end image output

Diversified development

At present, few people can accurately predict the development of commercial printing in the next 10 years. Although the field of commercial printing inks is quite mature, its development is slower and different than in the past, but its development prospects are still worth the wait.

In the face of increasing consumer demand today, large-scale printing companies that provide diversified technologies (such as digital printing UV ink-jet printing sheet-fed offset printing, etc.) are advantageous in addition, as more and more sheet-fed printing involves Traditional water-based coatings or bright flexographic inks and glazing techniques require that future sheetfed printers have more printing presses and glazing equipment. These changes require ink suppliers to be more professional and able to The field maintains quality and innovation

Source: China Printing Materials Business