Smithers report heralds decade of COVID-19 disruption in print industry

COVID-19 crisis will act to accelerate trends already evident in the market – a diminishing importance of publications and graphics work pushing print businesses towards packaging print, and the implementation of smarter, more digitised, short-run printing. Post-COVID scenario projections in the new Smithers report titled The Future of Print to 2030 shows total output in 2020 will be 41.4 trillion A4 print equivalents; down 13.4 percent on 2019. This has seen global value drop from $814.7 billion to $743.4 billion. Publication, advertising and graphic applications have been worst affected; while packaging & label print is proving more resilient. This will be reflected in print substrates, total volume will fall from 1.95tn sqm in 2019, to 1.85tn sqm forecast in 2030.