Asia is already leading the way when it comes to digitally printed packaging!

According to Smithers' "The Future of Global Printing to 2026" report, Asia will account for 41.7% of the total value of global printing by 2022, equivalent to $325.6 billion, and will produce 18.35 trillion A4 print equivalents. Meanwhile, Asia is also the largest region for equipment sales, with annual sales expected to be $6.18 billion in 2022.

What's more, Asia is a market that is far from saturated. While print volumes in Europe and North America will be permanently reduced due to two years of Covid-19 lockdowns and business restructuring, Asia is resuming an upward trend. It will account for 73% of the value added of the global printing market in the five years to 2026. The region includes 7 of the 15 fastest-growing national print output markets tracked by Smithers analysis.

In image jobs, as applications such as advertising, mail, office printing and news media increasingly use electronic channels, more consumption in the Asian region will make up for lost sales and revenue in developed regions. However, like other regions, the packaging and labeling industry remains the largest market for future growth: nearly 87% of the value growth (valued at $33.8 billion) over the next five years will come from these segments.

China

China is the largest print market in the region, but it has traditionally been difficult to penetrate directly, often requiring local sales offices and distributors to bridge the cultural gap, especially during the pandemic. Although packaging printers in China and the United States tend to buy quite different combinations of machinery, for example, China usually prefers low-end machines, while North America and Western Europe prefer the latest high-tech automation equipment, this does not prevent China from 2020. Overtakes the United States as the country with the highest value of new printing equipment in 2019

Many established equipment manufacturers have established assembly and manufacturing facilities in China. In the past, mainly due to its lower domestic labor costs, but also more conducive to selling to the local market, this is also a strategy used by ink and printing plate manufacturers. As China's economy matures and labor wages rise, this provides incentives for other Asian countries to adopt the same development model. These include Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, which are unsaturated but growing markets for packaged goods that are very attractive options for printing labels and packaging.

The country now has its first installations of high-productivity digital packaging presses as the country's booming e-commerce sector drives demand for digitization. For example, Hexing Packaging installed China's first HP PageWide T400S digital press in 2021, while Forest Packaging invested in several Hanhua's single- and multi-pass high-speed inkjet presses. In addition to this, e-commerce places more emphasis on traceability and secure printing applications, and the government has also introduced policies to implement new traceability requirements for pharmaceuticals. This has driven demand for more single-color coding inkjet equipment, benefiting Kodak, Domino, and domestic companies such as Founder Electronics.

India

India is the least mature major economy in the region and therefore has the greatest potential for growth. This is a printing market in transition. The main value of the printing market still comes from newspaper and magazine printing. Many consumers have low disposable income and limited access to packaged goods. As a result, the Indian market has been relatively slow to adopt high-performance digital printing, with many low-performance machines (including cut-sheet presses) still in use.

The leading supplier of narrow web inkjet presses in India is Monotech Systems and its Jetsci range. This includes a range of machines from the entry-level ColorAqua to the Colornovo hybrid presses with speeds up to 50m/min, which are built around web control systems from GM. In addition to more stable installations in the Indian market, Jetsci now sells to other countries and regions, such as Italy, Romania, Serbia, and most recently, South Africa.

Japan

Japan is the third largest printing market in the world, after the United States and China. This is a mature market and is widely regarded as the most quality-conscious market. It does not use flexographic printing like other developed printing markets, because it is difficult to consistently reproduce fine Chinese characters in small and micro fonts, so gravure printing is preferred. Japan has a number of printing equipment manufacturers with considerable strength in the world, and several of them are global leaders in the field of inkjet, especially the manufacturing of print heads.

Nonetheless, domestic print service providers have been slow to adopt digital processes in labeling and packaging operations. This is now reversing, with Komori, for example, reporting its first domestic installation of the Landa-powered NS40 sheetfed press, designed for high-throughput folding carton printing. More broadly, the majority of digital packaging output in Japan is still limited to proofing and prototyping, but toner and inkjet press installations are growing, mainly including printing on labels, color boxes, flexible packaging and corrugated paper.