Nordic Commercial Printing Market - Growth, Trends, COVID 19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The Nordic Commerical Printing Market is expected to register a growth at a CAGR of 2.27% over the forecast period (2021-2026). Technological proliferation along with rising applications across multiple end-use segments is anticipated to encourage the demand for commercial printing prints on materials such as business forms, financial printing, and training manuals in the Nordic countries. Advertising and the product needs of business customers drive demand for high-quality printing jobs.

Key Highlights

• Commercial printing covers a broad range of materials including product manuals, catalogs, direct mail, books, and transactional purposes. For large print runs, offset printing - which includes the creation of print plates - remains the principal means. However, there is a burgeoning requirement for digital printing, which does not need plates and is nimble enough for short-run production in a wide variety of applications and fast turnaround.
• The increase in the consumption of printed media is creating new opportunities for the vendors in the region. According to Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), in Denmark, the printed media consumption increased from 5% in 2019 to 6% in 2020.
• The lithographic process is observed to be dominating the retail print industry but is expected to suffer market share to methods such as digital prints that are entirely suited to shorter print runs. Application segments include advertising, office products, catalogs, periodicals, labels and wrappers, and directories. Furthermore, it can be used to print garments, books, & other fabrics, documents, financial & legal forms, catalogs, & directories simultaneously with office products.
• As the printing industry is a supplier to many other economic sectors, the emergence of COVID-19 outbreak across the globe is significantly impacting the commercial printing industry in the region. The first impact can be considered on the commercial printing companies supplying to trade fairs/exhibitions or meetings and events; and large amount of which got cancelled at the last moment.
• Furthermore, due to the change in the consumer behavior during pandemic, the trends of online are expected to be there post pandemic. However, as things reopen and get back to normal, the need for commercial printing is expected to increase as printing helps in engaging consumers and leveraging new revenue opportunities in advertising industry.

Key Market Trends

Digital Printing is Expected to Grow Significantly

• Digital printing has been making the segment evolve apart from the traditional use of renewable resources to improving print accuracy and significantly reducing emissions and wastage. With a rising concern among the printing companies and overall goal to meet the sustainability goals, they are reducing their carbon footprint.
• Digital printing differs from traditional printing methods such as offset printing as they do not require printing plates. Instead of using metal plates to transfer an image, digital printing presses print the image directly onto the media substrate which results in producing on-demand and short print runs quickly and cost-effectively.
• The Drop-on-demand (DOD) technology is further sub-divided into thermal DOD and piezoelectric DOD. Most consumer inkjet printers use the thermal inkjet process. Inkjet printing uses thermal excitation to move the tiny drops of ink onto the substrates. Most commercial and industrial inkjet printers, along with some consumer printers, use a piezoelectric material that is excited by the application of a voltage to ensure a continuous flow of ink. When the voltage is applied, the shape of the piezoelectric material changes, generating a pressure pulse in the fluid that forces a droplet of ink from the nozzle.
• The significant advantage of using inkjets is due to its capability to produce short runs and unique products effectively. Commercial printing is being driven by the growth of online ordering and specification by using web-to-print technology. The ability of inkjets in the production of short runs and one-off products has reinforced their role as a critical enabler in such an ecosystem.
• These advantages associated with the digital printing is encouraging various printing houses to adopt new digital printing technologies for fast turnarounds and to attract new customers. For instance, in January 2021, Auraprint, one of the major printing houses in Finland announced that it has installed HP 6K digital printing press which offers different inks including silver, white, yellow, and blue, and others.
• Similarly, in May 2021, Vogue Scandinavia announced the launch of a global edition of the magazine on its digital flagship store. The move helps the company reducing the production costs and packaging costs of magazines. Such trends further affect the market.

Revenue from the Newspaper Printing is Expected to Follow the Downward Trend

• Due to high circulation and extensive readerships, the Nordic region has been characterized as a newspaper region. According to Nordicom, the overall number of newspapers in the region is stable; however; the number of titles in Norway has been experiencing a continuous decline since 2000 due to digitization and globalization rapidly taking place and changing the media landscape and use, challenging the strong position of newspapers in the Nordic countries.
• According to Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research or NORDICOM, the daily reach of online newspapers in Sweden increased from 48% in 2019 to 55% in 2020. This highlights the demand for and the growth in the usage of online alternatives to print news publications.
• The newspaper printing companies are also actively looking forward to making strategic mergers and acquisitions to gain market share. For instance, in May 2020, Sanoma Media Finland announced the acquisition of Alma Media's regional news media business by investing over USD 125 million for printing services provider Alma Manu Oy. The company has over 185,000 subscribers, with only 15% of digital copy subscribers.

Competitive Landscape

The commercial printing market is significantly fragmented due to the presence of many international and regional companies. Owing to reasons such as the overcapacity of firms and pricing pressures, the market appears to be extremely competitive. Product obsolescence, expansion of commodity materials, and more affordable material imports are the main challenges faced by commercial printing businesses. Demand is encouraged by the advertising and product requirements of business customers. The profitability of individual firms is strictly linked to effective sales operations. Small organizations can fight efficiently by giving more genuine local service in a specific product category.

• January 2021 - Posti and Sanoma Media Finland concluded a long-term extension agreement on the early-morning delivery of newspapers in the capital region. The agreement guarantees delivery of printed media in the capital region until the end of 2029. The primary objective of the agreement was to ensure that the cost development of the printed newspaper remains sustainable, also in terms of delivery.
• January 2021 - Sanoma Learning,s a provider of printed and digital learning content in Europe, announced the completion of the acquisition of Santillana Spain, a leading company in learning materials, from Promotora de Informaciones S.A. (Grupo PRISA). The acquisition is a part of Sanoma Learning’s strategy of increasing its presence on education throughout Europe.

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