Inkjet's Age, a print supplement to Quick Printing, is a business and technology brand dedicated to corporate and senior management and focusing on issues surrounding inkjet printing technology in all its forms. Inkjet's Age covers the industry news,
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Applications Transaction printing remains the largest application of all pages printed on these devices. While inkjet pages are projected to double through the forecast period, it is effectively a shift from toner to inkjet pages. IT Strategies is projecting that by 2017 nearly all toner-based mono continuous feed pages remaining will have been replaced by continuous feed inkjet printers. This means that future page volume growth will become more dependent upon a combi- nation of both offset page replacement and new application page volumes. Transaction printer sales continue to do well, but a significant amount of engine placement volume was due to large account sales. Some of the sites purchased in excess of six engines in a single deal (all US-based), with one account reportedly acquiring in excess of 15 engines. Units intended for direct mail applications also grew, mainly due to growth in Asia (mitigating decline in Europe). Direct mail is the application were there is "unlimited" upside, driven in part by the fact that rising postage costs are going to force retailers to better mine their customer data in order to make more relevant offers. While much direct marketing investment continues to be aimed at non-print communication channels, there is no bet- ter provable return-on-investment than highly relevant direct mail. The challenge is getting retailers to mine their data to get to the high-relevancy stage. Engines for book printing applications grew in 2013 as existing accounts added more engines. It could however be growing more, as the technology and print quality are well proven at this stage in the market. The issues may well be related to costs. I.T. Strategies is projecting slower adoption for 2014 among book printers as those that have not yet moved to inkjet printing systems continue to be slow to make the large investments required. When adding in-line finishing, the cost of total investment can often be double the sys- tem acquisition price. The "Other application" includes those units that are neither strictly transaction nor direct mail printers. Some are printing vari- able data catalog inserts, some wealth management reports with photographic image content, customized travel itineraries/bro- chures, etc. The common link is the heavy dependency on variable data and color photographic images. Page Volumes I.T. Strategies is projecting demand for nearly 600 billion con- tinuous feed inkjet pages by 2017. While an estimate, we project that about 40 percent of pages will need to be sourced from new applications. These applications are apt to include a high-degree of personalized data—something that doesn't commonly exist today in the volumes projected. Many of these new application pages will be things like highly relevant loyalty reward coupons, personalized wealth management reports, etc. There is arguably some overlap with transaction pages, and some might define these pages as transpromotional, but the common link is these applications did not require a response nor were they possible to produce with the degree of high-relevancy available today. Conclusion The continuous feed inkjet production printer market is a great market to participate in for equipment manufacturers and print providers, especially in context of most other printer market seg- ments. Total revenue growth is expected to average 18 percent an- nually for the next five years. It may well grow even faster than projected in our forecast here, providing some of the ink coverage and substrate challenges get N ow entering its sixth full year since its introduc- tion, the continuous feed inkjet printer market shows no signs of maturity. There are few other markets in either the printer segment or con- sumer electronic segments that continue to show growth after five years. To keep growth going, equipment and supplies manufacturers are making major investments in the creation of variable data and ink/substrate range com- patibility expansion (both connected to lower total cost of ownership). 26 MARCH 2014 • INKJET'S AGE www.MyPRINTResource.com MARKET INTELLIGENCE How equipment and supplies manufacturers are making investments in the industry to continue market growth. By MARCO BOER The Continuous Feed Inkjet Production Market in 2014 (continued on page 25) FIGURE 1: Engine Unit Sales by Applications QPsupp_25-28_0314 Market.indd 26 2/18/14 11:47 AM