By Eef de Ridder, Vice President, Graphic Communications Group, Ricoh Europe
As the year draws to an end, we turn our attention to 2025 and how significant, globally defining factors will shape the printing industry.
2024 was an historic election year with more than 70 countries taking to the ballot boxes. In over 80% of democracies the incumbents were voted out. In Europe this has resulted in significant national shifts and regional instability due to the polarisation of the left and the right. It has had a financial impact, particularly on interest rates. As print growth follows GDP growth, a reduction in business opportunities and trade volume is likely. Proving a hindrance too, will be trade barriers limiting transactions for export to the US.
America was no different. As well as the political change accompanying the return of a Trump administration the rest of the world will, it seems, face higher import taxes. This will affect orders and may drive a shift towards local production of price sensitive products. Demand for imported print may move away from commodity applications to focus on high quality items such as luxury coffee table books and specialist publications.
War continued to have an impact on business in 2024 and it will be shaping it in 2025 too. All eyes will continue to be on the Russia-Ukraine war while potentially damaging boycotts will be created by the conflict in Gaza.
The full impact of all these influencing elements is still yet to be completely understood as situations evolve daily.
Continuing to evolve too, is universal commitment to environmental responsibility for print production. The Paris Climate Agreement and more recently COP 29 have reconfirmed a wide international effort. In Europe Print Service Providers (PSPs) are working on meeting the 2024 European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) which requires any business with revenue of more than E40m (and any non-European company doing business in Europe with more than E150M) to start quantifying and measuring their sustainability performance.
We have all seen how extreme weather has added to the cost of operations as companies invest in making supply chains more flexible while customer activism is set to put pressure on companies to exceed legal standards. Plastic bans will continue to encourage greater adoption of paper solutions, especially in packaging, labels, and cards applications, while the emphasis on local production will increase, benefiting those PSPs that are as close as possible to their clients. All of which ensure sustainability will become an increasingly key factor in purchasing decisions for print.
PSPs are also having to ready themselves for more stringent data protection laws with regards to hosting customer data owned by their clients, new employment laws, and stricter health and safety requirements. The disconnection between the creation and governing of laws in different countries has the potential to impact the export and import of printed products, favouring the online selling of print.
In fact, 2024 was a significant year for online print as for the first time more than 50% of all print sold was online. Digitisation of documents is continuing to accelerate while inkjet is becoming a dominant print technology in many applications. There is a growing focus as well on what AI can do and how the use of robots can increase productivity.
At the same time PSPs are changing from a labour intensive to capital intensive business model. Most have to borrow money to finance new equipment and those that experience challenges in finding and retaining skilled labour may find capacity and production under pressure. Investing in digital printing capabilities and automation can help mitigate employment costs, reduce waste associated with analogue production, and increase production flexibility to manage last minute orders – no matter the volume. The recent easing of challenges surrounding the supply of consumables and substrates has enabled PSPs to refocus their attention on improving operational efficiency and productivity.
While the stabilisation of inflation might help, operations will continue to face expenditure increases on a number of fronts – rising energy prices affecting costs and travel, higher interest rates impacting national debts and hindering access to capital, trade barriers limiting transactions with some countries and placing downward pressure on consumer spending. This could result in reduced spending on printed communication, especially in retail and photo merchandise. It may also drive the consolidation of printers in certain markets.
There are social and cultural considerations to consider as well, from an ageing population impacting access to a skilled workforce and more and more people working from home. Other considerations include migration and a mounting trend of income inequality. Also proving transformative is the growth in retail e-commerce sales estimated to exceed $4.1 trillion worldwide by the end of 2024 with new heights expected to be reached in the years ahead. Children’s literacy is seeing a widespread decline, and that has the potential to reduce the run length of books, possibly driving digital production. We are seeing too, an increase in active monthly users on social media despite privacy issues, the proliferation of fake news, and inaccurate sponsored posts. This may actually boost printed communications.
The printing industry landscape in 2025, as we see it now, is marked by economic uncertainty, environmental demands, and rapid technological innovation. PSPs that embrace sustainability, digitisation, and automation will be well positioned to adapt to shifting consumer and client preferences as well as regulatory pressures. This will empower their resilience and growth, despite the evolving global conditions.
