David Savastano, Editor07.28.19
Digital printing has made significant inroads in numerous markets and textiles have the potential to be the largest of them all.
Grand View Research, Inc. estimated the global textiles market at $830 billion in 2015, projecting it to grow to
$1.2 trillion by 2025.
A large majority of textile production is not printed. It is thought that printed textiles are perhaps 20% of the overall segment, and of that, only 2% of that total is printed by inkjet.
Estimates of the digital textile printing market suggest a billion-dollar industry that is growing fast. According to MarketsandMarkets’ “Digital Textile Printing Market by Printing Process (Roll to Roll, DTG), Ink Type (Sublimation, Pigment, Reactive, Acid), Application (Textile & Decor, Industrial, Soft Signage, Direct to Garment), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023,” sales for the digital textile printing segment were estimated to be $1.76 billion in 2018. MarketsandMarkets projects sales in this segment to reach $2.31 billion by 2023.
As the use of digital printing expands in many segments, the textile industry is also seeing the benefits of inkjet. According to ResearchandMarkets’ report, “Digital Inks Market by Formulation (Solvent-Based, Water-Based, UV-Cured), Application (Advertising & Promotion, Ceramic Tiles Printing, Clothing & Household Textiles, Packaging, Glass Printing), Substrate, and Region - Global Forecast to 2023,” the global digital inks market is projected to grow from an estimated $2.71 billion in 2018 to $4.17 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 9.1% from 2018 to 2023. ResearchandMarkets cites the expansion of the digital textile market as a major driver for this growth.
In “The Future of Digital Textile Printing to 2021,” Smithers Pira projected digital textile printing to be €1.17 billion in 2016, growing to €2.42 billion by 2021.
Digitally printing textiles has come a long way. No longer is it just used for prototyping and customizing; now it is used for small scale production. Fast fashion, where new styles are cycling ever quicker, is made for digital printing.
Paterson Fabric Printing, Paterson, NJ, specializes in engineered/completely customized apparel items (mostly athletic wear), accessories and promotional products. Ed Margarucci, owner of Paterson Fabric Printing, spoke on how his company uses digital printing to design and produce their creations.
“Paterson Fabric Printing uses digital printing in two ways: one, we take the design direct from our customer and produce off of files provided; or two, we are given the spec and idea from the customer and design from scratch,” Margarucci said. “We are able to generate all over prints, as well as custom and/or engineered prints. With our expertise of how to create a product from concept to finished/sewn/packed product and technology, we have the ability to create markers digitally and place prints within to have a completely customized product.”
Margarucci discussed the key advantages of digital printing of textiles, including the ability to differentiate products quickly.
“We have the know-how to create a completely customized product, from concept to market,” he said. “Within a supersaturated apparel and accessories marketplace, our customers know they need to stand out and diversify themselves. We give them the ability to get their unique product out to sell with the utmost quality and speed to really compete against the importing market.”
Margarucci believes that digital printing will become a necessity for textiles.
“With imports becoming harder to bring in, and with the need to not carry/hold inventory, we feel that the growth for this type of printing is going to become more of a necessity rather than an option,” Margarucci said. “Business owners are really sharpening their numbers on where to invest in their product, and with such a saturated digital marketplace, the dollars need to be monitored more fervently. Marketing efforts towards an internet-based consumer have been very costly, and so carrying product that sits in inventory will not outweigh the cost to sell. Paterson Fabric Printing is able to provide digital proofs to be a part of marketing efforts before any physical product is made (warm to hot sell in that case, as the market will respond to the imagery), and with speed to market to fulfill orders, we make the ROI very lucrative.”
Leading ink and printer companies in the textile field are seeing similar enthusiasm among their customers.
“We are seeing interest growing from designers who are curious about this ‘digital textile’ thing,” said Tim Check, senior product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America, Inc. “Epson hosts an annual fashion week event in New York City each year – called the Epson Digital Couture Project – to bring awareness to designers on how digital printing can be used to unleash their creativity and create fabulous fashion designs.”
“The design and color flexibility that can be achieved with digital printing is attracting a lot of new designers and stimulating new creative designs,” said Tony Cox, business manager, Sun Chemical. “These designs are utilizing a broad range of fabrics and ink technologies. The advances in ink technology is a major factor in being able to achieve these new designs.”
Dr. Simon Daplyn, marketing manager, Sensient Imaging Technologies, said that digital printing removes a number of constraints for designers, by allowing a broader range of color and design possibilities without the limitation of a screen colorway.
“Digital printing allows for sharp, precise detail, graduated or feathered coloring and photographic imagery, which are all extremely difficult to achieve with conventional printing,” Dr. Daplyn added. “We’re also seeing the emergence of ‘design for digital’ concepts, training courses and even exhibitions designed to promote the possibilities of digital printing for designers. There will always remain however a market for simple designs and there, the flexibility and responsiveness of digital printing, especially in short runs, may be key to digital adoption.”
“More schools and universities’ teaching design are starting to implement digital printing as part of their curriculum,” said David Lopez, textile solutions specialist at Mimaki USA. “New designers are starting to see digital printing as the normal process causing the industry to adapt more to using digital printing.”
“We’re seeing a trend that designers are adopting a micro-factory approach, so they have the designers designing and then a few small digital printers within the design house printing the first few meters, getting the types of designs and prints qualified at the brand level,” said Kevin Myers, head of business development, FUJIFILM Ink Solutions, Ltd. “Designers are looking at digital printing more and more and are having printers in-house so they don’t need to outsource. The design house can have the printed fabric or understand digital to try and convey the value to the brand level, and then also coordinate the supply chain to be able to produce the same design and color in bulk to supply their quantity requirements.”
“Many consumers are demanding ‘fast fashion.’ Designers can create samples on demand, make corrections or adjustments quickly, and produce short runs with digital printed textiles. With digital printing technology, designers can offer consumers more collections every year, and this can be for everything from apparel to home décor,” said Lily Hunter, product manager, textiles and consumable supplies – Roland DGA.
The Growing Market for Digital Textile Printing
The field of digitally printed textiles is growing rapidly, and ink suppliers are seeing more opportunities in this field.
Micol Gamba, textile product manager for EFI Reggiani, said that digital textile printing has a strong track record of growth that will only continue.
“Today, only ~7% of the square meters printed in the world are digital and steady double-digit growth is forecasted in the future as well,” Gamba reported. “In industrial markets, digital is a much-needed solution that addresses many of the environmental and efficiency challenges the textile industry faces, like water and energy consumption, flexibility to address any production scale needs, ensuring cost-effectiveness from very short up to long runs, better inventory management and superior proximity to consumers.”
“We’ve seen significant growth in demand for digital inks as the volume of printed textiles continues to increase, along with the need for high-quality, reliable and flexible solutions that meet the demands of modern textiles manufacturing. Despite a small industry-wide slowdown at the start of 2019, the market has recovered quickly and is showing no signs of slowing down,” said Dr. Daplyn. “ As the benefits of digital printing are realized beyond fashion applications, such as industrial and interior textiles, we expect to see further growth for digital inks and we are already working in partnership with customers across these applications to implement innovative print solutions that bring their designs to life in a more cost-effective and sustainable way.”
“Mimaki is seeing a large growth in printed textiles because market demands are changing,” said Lopez. “New market drivers such as e-commerce and new business models of selling a product first and then producing it gives digital printing the advantage.”
Hunter said that Roland DGA is seeing growth in the digitally printed textiles market.
“In general, personalization and short-run productions are extremely popular, and digital printing is facilitating this trend,” Hunter added. “This can be seen in various aspects of textile printing, from apparel and accessories to home goods and décor.”
“From the point of view from an ink supplier, we see rapid growth and see it in terms of digital printer installations,” said Hamid Shirazi, Ph.D., segment marketing manager, FUJIFILM Ink Solutions, Ltd. “Traditional suppliers of digital printers in that market are still growing and expanding and selling hundreds of printers into that market every year.
“The best manifestation of it is really in terms of the printers,” Dr. Shirazi added. “As an ink supplier, we supply the ink to these printers but, as far as metrics are concerned, the number and the different types of technology being introduced is a very good indication of the growth and how successful digital printing is for textile. We also see more and more printer OEMs entering this market, utilizing new single-pass MEMS printheads like Fujifilm Samba. These are enabling higher resolution and higher productivity machines, creating other opportunities, so there is definitely significant and rapid growth.”
“Sun Chemical continues to see solid growth in the digital textile printing market that has led us to pursue more research and development,” Cox reported. “The move towards fast fashion has been helped by the quick development and production cycles offered by digital printing and has been reflected by the rapid growth in online fast fashion brands.”
“The digitally printed textile market is seeing double-digit growth,” Check said. “Epson’s Dye-Sublimation and Direct-to-Garment printers continue to be very popular.”
In spite of its growth, digital printing of textiles remains a small portion of the overall textile industry. What needs to occur to drive more growth?
“There are many factors that can help fuel more growth in digital printing of textiles,” Hunter said. “More widespread adoption of digital printing technology is one of them. Technology can be scary, and there is a learning curve for operating the printer and finisher (if needed, depending on ink technology used), as well as a need to learn about and understand color management. In addition to investing in equipment, businesses need to train personnel, who may be used to doing things a certain way for a long time. There is always a need for traditional printing methods, like screen printing and rotary printing systems, but companies are slowly realizing that digital printing complements these traditional methods. By incorporating digital printing into the workflow, they’re able to print photorealistic images, gradients, and do short and medium production runs cost-effectively.”
“The majority of designers are unaware of the benefits of digital textile printing. As designers become aware of near-limitless constraints using digital printing, I expect that we will see a greater increase in fashion apparel produced digitally,” Check said.
“Single-pass can greatly expand the scope of what textile companies can profitably produce in larger quantities and it will be one of the technologies revolutionizing the textile market,” said Gamba, who added that the EFI Reggiani BOLT offers direct-to-textile printing at speeds up to 90 meters per minute.
“The design and color flexibility of digital textile printing has enabled more customization and personalization, as well as economic short runs, and shorter delivery times with no need to hold large stocks,” said Cox. “These are the key drivers leading to the strong growth forecasts in the digital textile market over the coming years.
“More and more questions are being raised about the environmental impact of the traditional textile industry. Digital printing can offer several approaches to significantly reduce this impact,” Cox added. “For example, reactive dye printing generates significant wastewater and energy consumption in post-print processing. Pigmented inkjet avoids this. To succeed, pigmented inkjet needs to deliver textile prints at a color, quality and cost that consumers will accept. Sun Chemical is investing heavily in innovation to offer pigmented inkjet chemistries to meet this challenge.”
“While a small proportion of the overall industry, digital printing accounted for around 2.5 billion square meters of output in 2018, almost double that of 2015 and shows a GAGR of around 20%,” said Dr. Daplyn. “Currently, close to half of all textiles are printed by pigment inks. However, the relative proportion of digital printing with pigment is very low. In order for this market to grow more rapidly, digital pigment inks need to deliver either better color and fastness performance compared to what is available today.
“The other key driver of growth is likely to come from the sustainability benefits that digital printing delivers,” Dr. Daplyn added. “The textiles industry is under pressure to clean up its act and the latest advances in digital inkjet
technology support reduction in water, waste and energy consumption, which appeals to brands and manufacturers
looking for more environmentally responsible solutions. As many large textile mills have invested heavily in traditional equipment for printing and processing, the ROI for digital must be compelling enough to drive the change of technology, and we work closely with customers to demonstrate how digital inks can deliver value for their business beyond color.”
“Consumable prices, such as inks, are still higher than conventional screen printing,” Lopez said. “Once prices become comparable which is happening faster and faster, big companies will start to adopt digital printing more.”
Grand View Research, Inc. estimated the global textiles market at $830 billion in 2015, projecting it to grow to
$1.2 trillion by 2025.
A large majority of textile production is not printed. It is thought that printed textiles are perhaps 20% of the overall segment, and of that, only 2% of that total is printed by inkjet.
Estimates of the digital textile printing market suggest a billion-dollar industry that is growing fast. According to MarketsandMarkets’ “Digital Textile Printing Market by Printing Process (Roll to Roll, DTG), Ink Type (Sublimation, Pigment, Reactive, Acid), Application (Textile & Decor, Industrial, Soft Signage, Direct to Garment), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023,” sales for the digital textile printing segment were estimated to be $1.76 billion in 2018. MarketsandMarkets projects sales in this segment to reach $2.31 billion by 2023.
As the use of digital printing expands in many segments, the textile industry is also seeing the benefits of inkjet. According to ResearchandMarkets’ report, “Digital Inks Market by Formulation (Solvent-Based, Water-Based, UV-Cured), Application (Advertising & Promotion, Ceramic Tiles Printing, Clothing & Household Textiles, Packaging, Glass Printing), Substrate, and Region - Global Forecast to 2023,” the global digital inks market is projected to grow from an estimated $2.71 billion in 2018 to $4.17 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 9.1% from 2018 to 2023. ResearchandMarkets cites the expansion of the digital textile market as a major driver for this growth.
In “The Future of Digital Textile Printing to 2021,” Smithers Pira projected digital textile printing to be €1.17 billion in 2016, growing to €2.42 billion by 2021.
Digitally printing textiles has come a long way. No longer is it just used for prototyping and customizing; now it is used for small scale production. Fast fashion, where new styles are cycling ever quicker, is made for digital printing.
Paterson Fabric Printing, Paterson, NJ, specializes in engineered/completely customized apparel items (mostly athletic wear), accessories and promotional products. Ed Margarucci, owner of Paterson Fabric Printing, spoke on how his company uses digital printing to design and produce their creations.
“Paterson Fabric Printing uses digital printing in two ways: one, we take the design direct from our customer and produce off of files provided; or two, we are given the spec and idea from the customer and design from scratch,” Margarucci said. “We are able to generate all over prints, as well as custom and/or engineered prints. With our expertise of how to create a product from concept to finished/sewn/packed product and technology, we have the ability to create markers digitally and place prints within to have a completely customized product.”
Margarucci discussed the key advantages of digital printing of textiles, including the ability to differentiate products quickly.
“We have the know-how to create a completely customized product, from concept to market,” he said. “Within a supersaturated apparel and accessories marketplace, our customers know they need to stand out and diversify themselves. We give them the ability to get their unique product out to sell with the utmost quality and speed to really compete against the importing market.”
Margarucci believes that digital printing will become a necessity for textiles.
“With imports becoming harder to bring in, and with the need to not carry/hold inventory, we feel that the growth for this type of printing is going to become more of a necessity rather than an option,” Margarucci said. “Business owners are really sharpening their numbers on where to invest in their product, and with such a saturated digital marketplace, the dollars need to be monitored more fervently. Marketing efforts towards an internet-based consumer have been very costly, and so carrying product that sits in inventory will not outweigh the cost to sell. Paterson Fabric Printing is able to provide digital proofs to be a part of marketing efforts before any physical product is made (warm to hot sell in that case, as the market will respond to the imagery), and with speed to market to fulfill orders, we make the ROI very lucrative.”
Leading ink and printer companies in the textile field are seeing similar enthusiasm among their customers.
“We are seeing interest growing from designers who are curious about this ‘digital textile’ thing,” said Tim Check, senior product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America, Inc. “Epson hosts an annual fashion week event in New York City each year – called the Epson Digital Couture Project – to bring awareness to designers on how digital printing can be used to unleash their creativity and create fabulous fashion designs.”
“The design and color flexibility that can be achieved with digital printing is attracting a lot of new designers and stimulating new creative designs,” said Tony Cox, business manager, Sun Chemical. “These designs are utilizing a broad range of fabrics and ink technologies. The advances in ink technology is a major factor in being able to achieve these new designs.”
Dr. Simon Daplyn, marketing manager, Sensient Imaging Technologies, said that digital printing removes a number of constraints for designers, by allowing a broader range of color and design possibilities without the limitation of a screen colorway.
“Digital printing allows for sharp, precise detail, graduated or feathered coloring and photographic imagery, which are all extremely difficult to achieve with conventional printing,” Dr. Daplyn added. “We’re also seeing the emergence of ‘design for digital’ concepts, training courses and even exhibitions designed to promote the possibilities of digital printing for designers. There will always remain however a market for simple designs and there, the flexibility and responsiveness of digital printing, especially in short runs, may be key to digital adoption.”
“More schools and universities’ teaching design are starting to implement digital printing as part of their curriculum,” said David Lopez, textile solutions specialist at Mimaki USA. “New designers are starting to see digital printing as the normal process causing the industry to adapt more to using digital printing.”
“We’re seeing a trend that designers are adopting a micro-factory approach, so they have the designers designing and then a few small digital printers within the design house printing the first few meters, getting the types of designs and prints qualified at the brand level,” said Kevin Myers, head of business development, FUJIFILM Ink Solutions, Ltd. “Designers are looking at digital printing more and more and are having printers in-house so they don’t need to outsource. The design house can have the printed fabric or understand digital to try and convey the value to the brand level, and then also coordinate the supply chain to be able to produce the same design and color in bulk to supply their quantity requirements.”
“Many consumers are demanding ‘fast fashion.’ Designers can create samples on demand, make corrections or adjustments quickly, and produce short runs with digital printed textiles. With digital printing technology, designers can offer consumers more collections every year, and this can be for everything from apparel to home décor,” said Lily Hunter, product manager, textiles and consumable supplies – Roland DGA.
The Growing Market for Digital Textile Printing
The field of digitally printed textiles is growing rapidly, and ink suppliers are seeing more opportunities in this field.
Micol Gamba, textile product manager for EFI Reggiani, said that digital textile printing has a strong track record of growth that will only continue.
“Today, only ~7% of the square meters printed in the world are digital and steady double-digit growth is forecasted in the future as well,” Gamba reported. “In industrial markets, digital is a much-needed solution that addresses many of the environmental and efficiency challenges the textile industry faces, like water and energy consumption, flexibility to address any production scale needs, ensuring cost-effectiveness from very short up to long runs, better inventory management and superior proximity to consumers.”
“We’ve seen significant growth in demand for digital inks as the volume of printed textiles continues to increase, along with the need for high-quality, reliable and flexible solutions that meet the demands of modern textiles manufacturing. Despite a small industry-wide slowdown at the start of 2019, the market has recovered quickly and is showing no signs of slowing down,” said Dr. Daplyn. “ As the benefits of digital printing are realized beyond fashion applications, such as industrial and interior textiles, we expect to see further growth for digital inks and we are already working in partnership with customers across these applications to implement innovative print solutions that bring their designs to life in a more cost-effective and sustainable way.”
“Mimaki is seeing a large growth in printed textiles because market demands are changing,” said Lopez. “New market drivers such as e-commerce and new business models of selling a product first and then producing it gives digital printing the advantage.”
Hunter said that Roland DGA is seeing growth in the digitally printed textiles market.
“In general, personalization and short-run productions are extremely popular, and digital printing is facilitating this trend,” Hunter added. “This can be seen in various aspects of textile printing, from apparel and accessories to home goods and décor.”
“From the point of view from an ink supplier, we see rapid growth and see it in terms of digital printer installations,” said Hamid Shirazi, Ph.D., segment marketing manager, FUJIFILM Ink Solutions, Ltd. “Traditional suppliers of digital printers in that market are still growing and expanding and selling hundreds of printers into that market every year.
“The best manifestation of it is really in terms of the printers,” Dr. Shirazi added. “As an ink supplier, we supply the ink to these printers but, as far as metrics are concerned, the number and the different types of technology being introduced is a very good indication of the growth and how successful digital printing is for textile. We also see more and more printer OEMs entering this market, utilizing new single-pass MEMS printheads like Fujifilm Samba. These are enabling higher resolution and higher productivity machines, creating other opportunities, so there is definitely significant and rapid growth.”
“Sun Chemical continues to see solid growth in the digital textile printing market that has led us to pursue more research and development,” Cox reported. “The move towards fast fashion has been helped by the quick development and production cycles offered by digital printing and has been reflected by the rapid growth in online fast fashion brands.”
“The digitally printed textile market is seeing double-digit growth,” Check said. “Epson’s Dye-Sublimation and Direct-to-Garment printers continue to be very popular.”
In spite of its growth, digital printing of textiles remains a small portion of the overall textile industry. What needs to occur to drive more growth?
“There are many factors that can help fuel more growth in digital printing of textiles,” Hunter said. “More widespread adoption of digital printing technology is one of them. Technology can be scary, and there is a learning curve for operating the printer and finisher (if needed, depending on ink technology used), as well as a need to learn about and understand color management. In addition to investing in equipment, businesses need to train personnel, who may be used to doing things a certain way for a long time. There is always a need for traditional printing methods, like screen printing and rotary printing systems, but companies are slowly realizing that digital printing complements these traditional methods. By incorporating digital printing into the workflow, they’re able to print photorealistic images, gradients, and do short and medium production runs cost-effectively.”
“The majority of designers are unaware of the benefits of digital textile printing. As designers become aware of near-limitless constraints using digital printing, I expect that we will see a greater increase in fashion apparel produced digitally,” Check said.
“Single-pass can greatly expand the scope of what textile companies can profitably produce in larger quantities and it will be one of the technologies revolutionizing the textile market,” said Gamba, who added that the EFI Reggiani BOLT offers direct-to-textile printing at speeds up to 90 meters per minute.
“The design and color flexibility of digital textile printing has enabled more customization and personalization, as well as economic short runs, and shorter delivery times with no need to hold large stocks,” said Cox. “These are the key drivers leading to the strong growth forecasts in the digital textile market over the coming years.
“More and more questions are being raised about the environmental impact of the traditional textile industry. Digital printing can offer several approaches to significantly reduce this impact,” Cox added. “For example, reactive dye printing generates significant wastewater and energy consumption in post-print processing. Pigmented inkjet avoids this. To succeed, pigmented inkjet needs to deliver textile prints at a color, quality and cost that consumers will accept. Sun Chemical is investing heavily in innovation to offer pigmented inkjet chemistries to meet this challenge.”
“While a small proportion of the overall industry, digital printing accounted for around 2.5 billion square meters of output in 2018, almost double that of 2015 and shows a GAGR of around 20%,” said Dr. Daplyn. “Currently, close to half of all textiles are printed by pigment inks. However, the relative proportion of digital printing with pigment is very low. In order for this market to grow more rapidly, digital pigment inks need to deliver either better color and fastness performance compared to what is available today.
“The other key driver of growth is likely to come from the sustainability benefits that digital printing delivers,” Dr. Daplyn added. “The textiles industry is under pressure to clean up its act and the latest advances in digital inkjet
technology support reduction in water, waste and energy consumption, which appeals to brands and manufacturers
looking for more environmentally responsible solutions. As many large textile mills have invested heavily in traditional equipment for printing and processing, the ROI for digital must be compelling enough to drive the change of technology, and we work closely with customers to demonstrate how digital inks can deliver value for their business beyond color.”
“Consumable prices, such as inks, are still higher than conventional screen printing,” Lopez said. “Once prices become comparable which is happening faster and faster, big companies will start to adopt digital printing more.”
