Printing remains one of the key sectors of the world economy with an ever-increasing market share gain year on year, according to Smithers Pira the worldwide authority on the packaging, paper and print industry supply chains. According to statistics provided, it is expected that the global printing industry will surpass $980 billion in the year 2018.

This growth is expected to largely come as a result of higher growth rates in packaging and labels. There has been an increasing demand for packaging and labels due to levels of consumerisms being on the rise on mostly Asian countries, which is rapidly developing an affluent middle class.

There are already significant indicators which showcase digital printing is on a rapid growth compared to analogue printing methods. Digital share of the entire markets has double from 9.5% in 2008 to 19.7% by 2018. If packaging were to be excluded the figures are even higher, 23.5% in 2012 to 38.1% by 2018.

The market for printing despite its growth seems to be travelling a different direction particularly as once solely print exclusive products are now being taken over by digital mediums such as E-books, online magazines and online newspapers have contributed to dip in demand in recent years.

However, the demand for packaging and labeling has only been on an upwards trend. It is also expected that matures markets such as USA will lose significant ground to emerging markets such as China followed by India and Mexico, Brazil and Russia which will all climb higher in the ranking as largest print markets. All the mentioned countries are in essence where the worlds’ largest portion of economy will consist within the next few decades and it seems only natural that Printing Industry provides a valuable insight as to where the markets are heading.

As per the current trends in the world printing industry Litho printing accounts for over 70% of the total volume of print even by 2022. However, it is important to note that many of the print that is done by Litho is low value publication such as newspapers to which demand is falling. Fastest growing area remains digital aided value addition printing.

Also as the digital printing market has advanced the prices are dropping constantly which has enabled digital based printers to offer more cost-effective solutions. Inkjet is the fastest-growing print process in the digital arena and technologies such as 3D printing are also slowly yet steadily appearing in the open markets and will grow in the coming years.