HP’s Latex 370 wide-format printer
Market analysts Technavio have found that the market will grow by two percent annually through to 2021.
The analysts reported that their research predicts the wide-format market will “grow steadily” at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of two percent by 2021, with the company noting that the market is “highly consolidated due to the presence of few established vendors holding significant parts of their respective market”.
In turn, “to gain a competitive advantage, these vendors are growing inorganically with an increasing number of mergers and acquisitions”, and “in an attempt to address the requirements involving different levels of complexity from the end-user segment”, a number of OEMs are “investing heavily in R&D to come up with customised and application-specific printers”, while to gain share in emerging markets others are “highly-focused on the development” of machines “with a balance in quality and cost”.
One of the “primary growth drivers” for the market is “the rise in adoption of UV-curable ink”, which “offers efficient curing of inks using high-intensity UV light”, and the “adoption” of this “is now increasing steadily across multiple industries”, with the growth “attributed to advantages like low heat generation and fast curing process”, as well as “the high durability of the UV-curable inks in outdoor conditions”.
These advantages, Technavio points out, “resulted in the high productivity and reduced ink consumption and operational costs”, and “considering [these] different benefits”, multiple industries are “adopting” the devices, with the growth “in turn” set to “propel the growth” of the market overall. Another trend is the “exponentially growing market for 3D printing”, with benefits of “high-quality output, energy efficiency, and less wastage”.
The analysts added that those benefits “have made 3D printers a preferred [option] among end-users in comparison to traditional 2D printing”, and the products can “provide organisations with relevant and inexpensive giveaways like prizes or scaled-down replicas of products too large to bring” to events. Such options have “compelled firms to adopt” 3D printing “as an imperative part of their operations”, while selective laser sintering (SLS) and fused-deposition modelling (FDM) will “augment the growth”.
Leading OEMs are said to include Canon, Epson, HP Inc, Mimaki and Roland, while “other prominent vendors” include Agfa Graphics, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Lexmark, Mutoh, Ricoh and Xerox. Technavio noted that the market is segmented into aqueous, solvent, UV-cured and latex inks, with aqueous dominating in 2016 and accounting “for a major part of the overall market share”, thanks to “key contributors” including “high affordability and increased presence in the market”.
Aqueous inks “offer high standards of print quality with better efficiency compared with solvent inks”, while their “low environmental hazards” are “compelling users to adopt” them, with “this growth in the penetration rate” to “result” in further growth. Finally, the report geographically segments into the Americas, Asia Pacific and EMEA, with the second of those accounting for “the maximum market share during 2016”, and will “continue to dominate […] for the next few years”.
With “rapid technological advances” in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China “resulting in better printers with enhanced quality”, the region dominates, while another reason for “high penetration” is “the presence of several established vendors” and “the growing advertising and graphics industry”, which is set to “fuel the growth” in future.