drupa: digital not advancing as expected

Trends that concern print shops at the moment are smaller editions, shorter delivery times and order growth. No surprise therefore that digital has become an important factor for print shops next to traditional offset. Four out of ten commercial printers say that a quarter or more of their turnover comes from digital. This is 14% for packaging, 22% for publishers and 62% for industrial graphic print shops.

However, the makers of the recent drupa report say that digital is not advancing as fast as expected. Although everyone expected that the transition to digital was continuing, for the first time there was a slight, but noticeable, decline in digital´s part in turnover.
Remarkable also is the fact that the growth of variable data isn´t pushing through. In 2013 19% of printers who do both digital and offset said that more than 25% of digital was variable print. In 2016 this was “only” 18%.

All this from the 4th drupa Global Trends report 2017. A number of graphic print companies were surveyed: 839 print shops of which 525 from Europe, and 331 suppliers of which 220 from Europe. The complete report is available online for 249€.
Source: drupa