InfoTrends has recently published its latest “Color Digital Label and Packaging Presses Market Forecast: 2014-2019.” This report forecasts the market for production level color digital presses designed to print packaging applications in industrial settings in process colors, including labels, folding cartons and flexible packaging.

According to InfoTrends, color digital label and packaging (CDLP) presses continue to have good success because brand owners worldwide need to target ever smaller market segments to be competitive. Essentially, they need timely, economic printing of short runs of packaging.

This type of printing is work that digital presses can often accomplish faster and at lower cost than analog presses can. As a result, color digital presses are now widely placed among label converters and, to a much smaller extent, packaging converters. Most of the installed CDLP presses operate side-by-side with flexo and other conventional presses, printing many short runs and, in the process, freeing the analog presses to print the long runs where they are most efficient.

In this study, InfoTrends has identified several market drivers. Digital press vendors are aware of the overall packaging market; one where print is growing, and where digital printing is a welcome alternate to analog printing. There are investments in R&D and new manufacturing by Epson, Fujifilm, Xaar and other inkjet head suppliers, which are raising productivity and reliability and cutting prices. There have been improvements in toners and inks with gold and silver toners, as well as low migration inkjet inks. Media options have increased and workflow tools have improved.

There has also been a greater acceptance of color digital printing by brands, which value especially its timeliness, its economic short runs and its improvements to supply chains. As more converters gain experience in printing digitally and in selling color digital printing to their customers, the use rate for CDLP presses has increased. The continuing development of hybrid CDLP presses is another key trend, as well.