The digital printing market will grow from $131.5 billion in 2013 to $187.7 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 7.4%, according to the latest research from Smithers Pira.
Digital's share of the total print market will grow from 9.8% in 2008 to 20.6% in 2018, with inkjet growing faster than electrophotography. All the offset processes will see their value shares fall, particularly in web offset.
A new study from Smithers Pira - The Future of Offset vs Digital Printing to 2018 - shows how the issue of direct competition between digital and offset printing is a daily occurrence for print service suppliers, in determining which process they should use for a particular job.
In 2008 all digital printing accounted for a little under 18.5% of the offset market in value terms, by 2018 it will be worth almost 50% of the offset sector across the world and higher in the more mature print regions. Digital's share of the offset volume is much lower, reflecting the much higher unit costs being obtained for digital print than for offset. The volume of all offset prints will fall by 10.2% across the world between 2008 and 2018, while digital print volume is forecast to grow by 68.1%.
The economics of offset and digital processes continue to evolve. Trends in improvements in productivity and reliability are making digital printing more cost effective over higher runs. Digital print can be produced quickly, with no time in platemaking, reducing the turnaround time of jobs. More printers will add a digital printer or press to their production armoury to optimise output and minimise unit costs.
Innovative use of digital printing for new products, while improving service levels, can help printers avoid offset printers becoming a commodity. Smithers Pira forecasts that digital print will continue to grow strongly from 2013 to 2018, led by inkjet technology.