The corona virus 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.
A revival of normal business activity in 2021 will see the market rebound slightly to reach $752.8 billion; but much of the volume lost in 2020 will not return. Value growth will return to push the market to $846 billion in 2030, as it undergoes a profound redefinition. This will be reflected in print substrates, total volume will fall from 1.95 trillion square metres in 2019, to 1.85 trillion square metres forecast in 2030. Overall tonnage will increase from 251.7 million tonnes to 264.4 million tonnes over the same period, as heavier basis weight packaging grades are employed and graphic paper volumes decline.
