Forecast for Digital Color Presses in Package Printing

WEYMOUTH, MASS.—InfoTrends published its 2011 forecast for production level color digital presses used to print labels and packaging. InfoTrends estimates that converters worldwide spent $166 million on this category of color digital presses in 2010 and that that total will grow at a 10.3 percent annual rate, 2010 to 2015.

“2010 was a bigger year for color electrophotographic presses than we expected, meanwhile inkjet placements were not as robust as we had earlier forecasted,” said Bob Leahey, the forecast’s author and associate director of InfoTrends’ Color Digital Label and Package continuous information service. “There’s good growth, though, on both sides. Converters now often use color digital presses in tandem with their analog systems, and some converters operate both electrophotographic and inkjet presses.”

The new report, “Color Digital Packaging and Labels Market Forecast: 2010-2015,” includes a detailed numerical description of the regional markets for color digital presses made by such companies as Agfa, EFI Jetrion, HP Indigo, Xeikon, and Xerox, cut by electrophotographic and inkjet technologies. The report describes the placements, revenues, and installed bases for the collective brands for the forecast period worldwide. The forecast also estimates and forecasts revenues for media, toners, and inks cut by label, folding carton, and flexible packaging applications, and it calculates value of printed output for each.

“Right now label and packaging converters worldwide bill about $2 billion annually for the output of their color digital presses,” Leahey continued. “While about 95 percent of that value is for labels for consumer goods, the young folding carton and flexible packaging applications are themselves growing. Geographically, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA), and North America (NA) and are the biggest markets for color digital label and packaging presses. Asia Pacific and Japan (AP/J) and rest of world (ROW) are the smaller and faster-growing regions.”

InfoTrends’ Color Digital Packaging and Labels Market Forecast report provides pivot tables for placements, installed base, revenue, volume, and retail value of print. In addition, the report contains a detailed set of slides that distill and describe the forecast data and also the thinking behind it. These slides describe the in-scope presses and applications, recent developments affecting the market, the key forces at work in future markets.