Commercial Printing Industry Trends

Transition to Digital Technology

Digital presses have become the norm in commercial printing; industry growth is coming almost entirely from digital printing. The commercial printing industry is shifting to faster production of smaller order quantities with more color, the major benefit of digital printing over offset and other printing methods. While digital inkjet printers began at the small end of printers, technology is increasingly able to make digital printers with greater capacity.

Industry Consolidation

Consolidation has characterized the US commercial printing industry since the 1990s, and is ongoing due to the dramatic changes in the marketplace. Industry consolidations are driven by technology shifts and companies seeking to grow by expanding into new geographic markets through acquisitions. Most consolidations are private companies, losing value and unable to keep up technologically, selling to another private firm. Small, family-run printers are least likely to be able to afford digital printing technology and the investment it requires.

Transition to Service Business

Commercial printing has traditionally been a manufacturing industry. While it maintains its manufacturing focus, it's evolving into a service business. Smaller printing runs, subject to customer changes, edits, and faster deadlines, are becoming the norm. Almost all industry growth comes from companies with digital printing capabilities, able to respond to smaller runs and changing customer needs quickly.

Lower Cost Per Page

Advances in both digital and conventional offset printing technology are lowering the cost per page for new printers. InfoTrends projects that the decline in cost per page will average 10 percent per year through 2010. As the cost of color printing has dropped, spot color is starting to replace previously all black-and-white print jobs.

Digital Image Storage

Because of the increasing conversion of images to digital format before printing, some commercial printers provide digital inventory services. Some printers, to expand services, are capitalizing on their expertise in the transfer, manipulation, and storage of digital images, especially in the front-end CAD process, Web page design, CD production, and generally in document and information management and distribution.

New Printing Technologies

With the introduction of digital plate-making, the entire printing process can be handled most effectively using digital technology. The traditional printing process relies on cameras and photographic film as an intermediate step in the photochemical production of the plates used in printing. New processes can make film from digital images without using a camera.