A Record Breaking Year of Wide Format Printing Market

People increasingly say that a large-format digital printing market, which has been forming a significant portion of the whole Korean sign industry, is currently in a crisis. A few people still believe that the field is consistently growing, at least quantitatively, and the indications resulting from the saturation of a large-format digital printer are attempts to jump to conclusions. Ever since its explosive emergence and sudden growth in the late 1990s, presentation of digital printing evolving around production of textile printing has become one of the most significant sign technologies of today. However, now is the time to identify some major problems associated with the digital printing market, and actively seek for solutions.

Upturn or Downturn
Some sign makers describe a large-format digital printing market is now saturated with so many technological equipments. However, dealers of the printers argue that the sales of equipments for printing graphics on fabrics is on a consistent rise, and that it will have grown by 10 to 20% by the end of this year, compared with the sales record of the last year. Also the production of textile printing, which forms the most significant portion of the digital printing market, is also expected to increase at an incredible rate this year. Makers of textile printing in Korea have reported that the average monthly production of fabrics for digital printing banners in 2004 used to be around three million yards, whereas the number is anticipated to increase up to four million yards in 2005. Some estimate that the monthly sales record reached 4.5 million yards April and May of last year. Others argue that the overall production of the textile media has remained the same: it is only the suddenly increasing number of textile printing media manufacturers that make each manufacturer achieve smaller market share. Of course, there is no statistical proof to this argument, though.

Requiring High Quality Graphics
To sum up the opinions from dealers of a large format digital printer, they say that the sales of their equipments have increased by 10 to 20% in 2004, compared with the previous year. They anticipate their sales record to remain same or continue higher growth pattern in 2005 as well. They argue that the sales of water-based ink printers have reached 2,000 to 3,000 units a year, and that of the solvent-based printers also have reached 500 units a year. Such growth of the printer sales, despite the recession in the consumer economy, can be attributed by two reasons. First, on of reasons is that more sign makers have begun replacing their old equipments with new ones that provides far better performance in terms of productivity and print quality. Second, the average prices of these equipments have also lowered compared with those a couple of years ago. A Korean dealer of a large-format digital printer made in Japan reported that the same equipment he has been dealing since 2003 now has a price lowered by 30%. He anticipates that the trend of declining printer prices is likely to continue for some time. Sign shops that have newly bought digital printing printers attribute the reason for their replacement of equipments to the fact that the desire on color performance from their clients has increased recently. Sign makers traditionally used to be superior to end user of digital printing in terms of the qualities of resolution, colors, and productivity of signs they produce. But they don’t any more, now that consumers like retailers are familiar with the technology and have a lot of idea of digital printing graphics. Newly upgraded and developed digital printers, thus, are enough means to meet the diversified and complicated needs of the consumers. As mentioned earlier, the field that leads the digital printing market of Korea is the textile printing. Another reason for prosperity of the sales record of digital printing printers is also the endless consumer demand for textile printing. Sign makers who bought their printers in the late 1990s and the early 2000 have replaced their equipments with new ones. Industry experts say that the average sales records of Rolland, Mutho, and Mimaki, all of which utilize the Epson printhead, reached 1,500 to 2,000 units 2004 year. They anticipate that the sales records of those products would rise up to 2,000 to 3,000 units in 2005.

Increasing Demand on Indoor Application of Digital Printing
In today’s sever competitive market, some sign makers and digital printing providers argue that digitally printed graphic has a high added value than production of outdoor signs. Water-based ink digital printers are easier to use and less vulnerable to the unit cost decline of digital printing graphics than solvent equipments. For instance, the unit cost of printing graphics on flex materials using the solvent-based printers has declined to \20,000 (Approx., US $ 20) to \30,000 (Approx., US $ 30) in 2005, whereas the unit cost of the synthetic-paper printing using the water-based printers has stayed at \40,000 (around US $ 40) to \50,000 (Around US $ 50). This does not mean a decline in the value of the solvent-based printers. What it means is the diversification of sign types produced and creation of new markets. Market scales for solvent-based printers have been increasing a bit in the outdoor application markets utilizing flex and vinyl media as well as in construction site fence using mesh materials, plus the textile printing media. More manufacturers of safety products and equipments have increasingly introduced solvent-based ink printers. A sign maker said that many construction and development companies at the sites of buildings use the construction fence graphics as a means to advertise their brands. Since those graphics, as a matter of fact, do not require high quality graphic images, more sign makers have started to use solvent-based printers to make them instead of a more traditional way of using silk screens printing. The sign maker added that he planned to purchase a solvent-based ink printer, since the demand for those signs utilizing the equipment is rising.

Technical Advance of Solvent Based Printer
Along with water-based ink printers, solvent-based digital printers are currently leading the market. Although many used to believe, a couple of years ago, that water-based printers would soon be replaced with solvent-based ink printers, such revolution has not taken place yet. This doesn’t mean that solvent-based printers have declined in terms of sales or demand from customers. Both the Korean and the worldwide manufacturers of the equipments have produced new models. These new models of solvent-based printers offer better resolutions, color qualities, and productivity compared with their predecessors. They are likely to catch up with the technological advancement of water-based printers soon, intensifying their appeals to potential consumers. Solvent-based printers used to provide lower resolutions than those of water-based ones, and were limited in terms of applications as they could only be used on the flex and vinyl materials. The recent models, however, present a largely increased range of colors that could be made with the combination of six or eight colors, and print-head at much a faster speed. The current market is equally divided between water-based printers and solvent-based ones.

Spotlight on UV Curable Printers
One of the most innovative transformations made in the expansion of the digital printing market is the development of UV curable printers, in which the whole industry has been interested for quite a long time. Many printer makers across the world have invented digital printing printers using the UV curable inks for reasons of environmental friendliness and ease of application onto almost any materials. However, it has been less than a year since the equipments were released into the Korean market. The world has been paying attention to the UV curable inks since four years ago or so. The invention and development of the UV-ink equipments is a result of continuous research and efforts made by the sign industry to expand its range of production methodologies and application. Equipments that use UV curable inks can print on almost any flat surfaces including rigid materials. The sign industry can now expand its market into the interior decoration and silk-screen printing with the UV curable printers that can print high quality graphic images on rigid materials, such as steel sheets, glasses, and acryl. Some UV-ink-based printers can be handled with rolls as well. UV curable printers are expected to continue their popularity this year. Sign makers argue that the market will become more dependent on the sign makers that have adopted the UV printers. Success stories of sign shop created by using UV curable printers will soon make many sign makers purchase the new type of printers