Converter Perspectives: 
Digital Printing in Packaging

The future

The survey results also give insight about what converters plan to buy and other predictions and preferences for the future. While InfoTrends is a strong advocate for digital printing, in fairness the survey points out that many converters do not use color digital at all. For these non-users, the survey asks when they expect that their companies will use color digital to produce full-color prime labels or folding cartons or flexible packaging. As seen in Figure 4, the answers vary by type of converter, with label converters the most likely to say 2010 or 2011 (a total of 30 percent) and flexible packaging converters the least likely (a total of 14 percent). At the same time, the share that say color digital printing will begin “later than 2012” or “never” climbs from 49 percent of non-users at label converters to 69 percent and 81 percent respectively among non-users at folding carton companies and flexible packaging companies.