The Large Opportunity-Growing Market for Wide- Format Digital Printing

Wide-format digital printing has already been given much weight in the signage industry. After the ’90s, wide-format digital printing steadily gained a greater market share, and it is currently playing an important role in the industry. End-users and customers now find it more difficult to choose a specific wide-format digital printer because a variety of wide-format digital printers are introduced and are adding to the newly developed equipment in the product line. UV curable printers, textile printers, and small-size flatbed printers have been added to the product line, which used to consist only of water-, oil-, and solvent-based ink digital printers. Moreover, the number of models of each product in the product line has been multiplying since two or three years ago.

Continuous Bullish Market Despite Economic Stagnation
After the ’90s, the wide-format digital-printing market dramatically developed. Since the 2002 Worldcup game, it has continued to show the greatest market share. Despite last year’s economic stagnation, a great number of wide-format digital printers have been sold in the market thus far this year. The home digital printer manufacturers noted that the overall 2004 sales volume increased from that in 2003 by 10-20%. The primary reason for this is that the previous digital printers are getting worn out, which means that when it comes to printing quality, they can no longer compete with the newly developed printers. Also, the prices of printers have dropped considerably since two or three years ago. A distributor who sells products from Japan claims that in 2004, they sold out the products released in 2003 after decreasing the price by 30%. They then expected that the prices of printers would continue to fall. Digital-printing providers explained that the end-users of digital printing, such as storeowners and signmakers, were becoming picky with the color of digital-printing graphics. This means that digital-printing providers should endeavor to satisfy the needs of the end-users with respect to resolution, color quality, and productivity. However, since last year, because the end-users have developed greater competence in the overall process of digital printing, digital-printing providers could no longer cope with their demands professionally.

High-Quality and High-End Solvent-Based Printers
The leading field in wide-format digital printing is now banner fabric printing. It is carried out with the use of a solvent-based digital printer that now leads the wide-format digital-printing market. Two or three years ago, solvent-based digital printers were expected to completely replace the water-based digital printers. The growth of solvent-based printers, however, later slowed down, although the use of such printers continued to expand at a moderate rate. Home digital-printer manufacturers as well as the worldwide overseas manufacturers have been releasing high-quality and high-end solvent-based digital printers, and their products’ technical and functional efficiency are exponentially improving along with their market applications. Such printers are either replacing the existing water-based printers or introducing new products for a wide range of applications. Two to three years ago, solvent-based digital printers provided less resolution than did water-based printers, and the range of media that could be used with the printers included only flexible-faced materials like PVC-type substrates and vinyl. Customers and digital-printing providers, however, are willing to spend money in purchasing that type of digital printer due to its 6- or 8-color possibility and high printing speed. Over 3-m wide, the super-wide-format digital printer’s growth has been increasing, and its application areas have been expanding into outdoors advertising, billboards, and the wide-color market. Medium- and small-size printers are mainly designed to replace the existing equipment and to be used by signage companies and professional digital-printing providers. As the competition in the digital-printing market is becoming stiffer, the unit cost of digital printing is going down and the demand for it has decreased by 20-50%. There has been a warning that overpricing due to the competition between digital-printing providers could ruin the signage industry.

UV Curable Printer Making Wider Inroads into the Markets
A revolutionary development in the digital-printing industry is that UV curable printers
started to make wider inroads into the market last year and this year. Because this kind of printer features an environment-friendly output and compatibility with almost all available media, all countries, including Korea, welcome its printing application, which an UV curable printer provides. Many manufacturers have then begun to develop and introduce the UV curable printers in the world market?this, in spite of the fact that the printer was introduced in the Korean market only last year. In the 2004 Kosign show, the visitors paid great attention to the UV curable printers. The following UV curable printers were released during the last Kosign show: Nur’s Tempo and Expedio, Durst’s Rho, IP&I’s Revo, Dill Precision’s NeoDeluxe, and Zund’s Uvjet 215-C. These printers began to form the basis of the creation of a new application area, which the conventional digital printers, including water-, oil, and solvent-based printers, could not accommodate. UV curable ink printers can print graphics on both rigid (e.g., glass, acrylic, and metal) and flexible substrates, and this new-concept printer has the potential to expand into the interior- & silkscreen-printing market in addition to the digital-printing market. Some types of this printer can output images on roll-to-roll media feeding. It is expected that UV curable printers, which have been widely publicized only in professional sign magazines, will have wider applications in the near future. The bright future for UV curable printers depends on how to apply in market niches areas. The real game is how the printer will replace the existing printers?the water-, solvent-, and oil-based printers. The timing relies on market acceptance by digital-printing providers. In addition, the biggest challenge of the UV curable printer manufacturers is to convince the consumers that properly designed UV curable printers are, or will be, an affordable solution to the problems presented by the existing printers. It is a battle that will be fought from one application to another.

Textile-Printing Application in an Effort to Diversify Business Areas
Banner fabric printing has emerged as the widest application area of the wide-format digital-printing technology. With the use of wide-format digital printers, many signmaking companies tried to transform their existing fabrication method, relying more on the printers. Consequently, wide-format digital-printing technology has greatly improved. It has been suggested, though, that the technology endeavor to expand its application areas. The most interesting areas for the digital-printing technology are textile printing and fine arts applications. As far as the textile-printing application is concerned, system manufacturers have developed and introduced new equipment, inks, and media to gain a large chunk of the market. Moreover, many sign shops that use banner fabrics are making inroads into the textile-printing market in their efforts to diversify their business areas. Now, as a direct-transfer system has come to be used in the production of banners and flags, the demand for textile-printing products has been steadily increasing, moving into a period of transition to other high-value products. Direct-transfer system prints output a graphic on fabric materials with the use of wide-format digital printers in transfer inks and dispersion dye-based inks. With the system’s adoption of wide-format digital printers, end-users now directly transfer and sublimate a graphic on fabric substrates. The transfer system used to print a graphic on fabric substrates with the use of a piece of paper printed with transfer inks. Recently, though, the transfer-printing process was simplified, reducing the length of the process. If the wide-format digital-printing technology would be actively applied in textile printing, the scale of the market could be enormous. The textile-printing applications include garments, interior items, flags, banner graphics, etc.

Small-Sized Flatbed Printer Creating a New Market in Sign Market.
After the end of 2000, some of the manufacturers began to develop and introduce small-sized flatbed printers to create a new market in sign industry. Recently, almost 10 companies have come into the market of the production of the printers. And they are competing in price and quality of the printers. The companies all clams that despite of the stiff competition in the market, it is just time to introduce the printers in Korean market, however, not in distance future, the market for small-sized flatbed printers will greatly be strong. Before, the application area available from the printers was mainly photo fancy items. But, the applications are expanding into interior signs, P.O.P. displays, medals, ID cards, and nameplates and more. The printer users used to have a difficulty of pre and finishing treatment on the materials. As about 500 printers have been sold in the market, a specialist company, which can do only pre-, and finishing treatment on the materials, appears in the market.