David Savastano, Editor07.27.20
Driven by China, India and a host of fast-growing countries, the Asia-Pacific region has become the world’s largest area for printing ink. Ink World estimates the region’s ink sales are more than $7.5 billion annually.
A look at the Top International Ink Companies in this issue drives this home: Four of the world’s seven largest ink manufacturers – DIC Corporation, Toyo Ink Group, Sakata INX, and T&K Toka – are headquartered in Japan, and have major operations throughout the region. hubergroup, the sixth-largest ink global supplier, is the largest ink manufacturer in India.
The Asia-Pacific region is not heterogeneous. China is the largest economy in the region and will have its own separate Ink World report in our September-October 2020 issue. Japan and India are major ink producers, with South Asia, Southeast Asia and ANZ (Australia-New Zealand) growing at their own pace.
Of course, that economic growth would have been expected again had the past 12 months been a typical year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is turning everything upside down. Supply chains are disrupted, while packaging ink demand is on the rise.
COVID-19 and Ink Manufacturers
COVID-19 has impacted the ink industry in a variety of ways.
“The graphic arts market performed decently in the Asia-Pacific region throughout Q1 2020,” said Masamichi Sota, executive officer, GM Printing Material Products Division, DIC Corporation. “However, we are finding that its performance has steadily declined since the last week of March. We have also found that while some countries in the region have been greatly impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, other markets have been affected minimally.
“We’ve seen that those countries that implemented a lockdown have had a larger impact on the ink market than others,” said Sota. “For example, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Pakistan, among others, have had the greatest impact. However, as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam have remained open, these countries have had less of an impact.”
“The plants in China, India and the Philippines were temporarily closed by the government,” said Katsuya Tanaka, GM – International Operations Department of the Corporate Planning Division of Sakata INX Corp. “As a result, production as well as sales volume decreased. After that, they have been gradually reopened and the plants in China operate almost as usual. In the overall Asia region, packaging demand has been boosted and the shipment volume of packaging ink has been increased somewhat because of the COVID-19 ‘stay at home’ requirement.”
hubergroup’s corporate communications team in Asia reported that the graphic arts market in the Asia-Pacific region is a mix of some businesses doing well and some witnessing a decline.
“COVID-19 has changed the dynamics further,” hubergroup added. “The packaging segment in offset, UV and liquid inks continues to grow. Newspaper inks and sheetfed commercial printing is declining and the scenario does not seem to get better from here soon.
“There has been a significant impact in ink operations in the region with respect to both demand (significant drop in commercial printing) and supply (labor, materials and transportation hampered at different times in different countries of the region),” hubergroup’s corporate communications team in Asia noted. “Logistics is still a challenge due to port-related issues, leading to a shortage of raw materials and hampering outbound cargoes/dispatches. Printing inks as an essential component of packaging are part of the essential commodities like food, pharma, hygiene, etc. This helped ink companies to maintain a certain level of operations even during severe lockdowns.”
“There have been two main impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ashish Pradhan, president India and Greater China for Siegwerk. “On the one hand, we see an impact from the supply side, where ink companies have faced difficulties to keep their operations going in the face of government restrictions, labor shortage as well as raw material and finished goods logistics challenges. On the other hand, we see an impact from the demand side, where printers and brand owners are still trying to stabilize their operations due to similar challenges faced by Siegwerk and other ink manufacturers, still coping with suppressed demand.”
Hirofumi Ozaki, department manager of T&K Toka’s Overseas Department, noted that COVID-19 has had a major impact.
“The impact of COVID-19 border measures implemented in many countries has had a major impact on the supply chain,” added Ozaki. “For the same reason, many of our customers have been forced to suspend or restrict operations due to the suspension of supply of materials and restrictions on the movement of workers, and the sales volume of ink has slowed down significantly.”
“Unlike other years, especially in 2020, from the second quarter of this year, because of the lockdown in each country, ink sales dropped down 20% to 30%, maybe even more than that. Here in Korea, we are almost living as usual, but there are some industries impacted, so the print industry also got damaged,” said Charlie Lee, head of DEERS I/Daihan Ink’s Overseas Sales Department’s team.
Jason Lee, CEO and president, Kwang Myung Ink Co., Ltd. (KMI), reported that COVID-19 significantly affected the APAC market.
“We now expect the decline of the publication market to accelerate,” said Jason Lee. “However, we think the sheetfed packaging market will bounce back and show further growth. At the time of writing, we do see signs of recovery in our domestic markets. In response to this scenario, we are enlarging our product portfolio, to include a complete range of heatset, coldset, sheetfed, UV-LED and low migration inks.”
Prior to COVID-19, the Asia-Pacific region was doing fairly well, with packaging on the upswing and publication printing on the decline.
“In most parts of the Asia-Pacific region, the demand for publication printing is stagnant or even constantly declining like elsewhere around the world,” said Pradhan.
“Packaging printing is in turn further increasing in Asia with growth rates of up to 6%-7%. The region still belongs to the fastest growing packaging markets worldwide.”
“The market seems to be shrinking with the conversion of media from analog to digital,” Ozaki observed. “The trend toward on-demand has not changed, as print jobs are becoming small lots and wide variety.”
“In 2019, sales were slightly lower than the previous year,” Charlie Lee said. “The same as usual, ink for commercial printing not so much, ink for packaging is increasing. In our case, we are the strongest heatset ink player in Korea, but many printers, due to no jobs, stop printing by heatset.”
“With the increase in demand from economic growth and population increase, etc., packaging ink sales are increasing overall in the Asian region,” Tanaka said. “Ink for paper media is also growing in India and China. The demand in the digital printing industries for toner and inkjet ink is increasing every year as well.”
Packaging Inks on the Rise
The packaging industry is doing well, which is good news for the ink industry.
Ozaki said that T&K Toka expects the packaging market to continue to expand.
“We believe that packages related to everyday life will remain firm due to the economic growth rate and population increase in the region,” Ozaki said. “In addition, we expect that the impact of COVID-19 will further increase the use of e-commerce in lifestyle. Among them, we especially anticipate the growth of eco-friendly flexible packaging.”
Pradhan noted that overall, packaging printing has undergone substantial growth in Asia in recent years and Siegwerk expects the trend to continue.
“We believe South East Asia and India will take the lead in terms of growth,” Pradhan added. “China, in turn, had a progressive decline in GDP growth rates with a packaging market almost reaching maturity. However, we still consider it to be a large and promising market, which is why we are very active and will further invest in growth going forward.”
“Despite the effects of limited economic activities caused by COVID-19, packaging demand has steadily grown, led by population increase and economic growth,” said Tanaka.
“Packaging is a continuously growing segment,” hubergroup’s corporate communications team in Asia noted. “There has been a temporary disruption due to COVID-19. However, the growth outlook for the packaging segment (rigid and flexible) is strong.”
“Packaging inks continue to be the main growth area, which is why we have placed so much emphasis on our product development activities in the energy curing and low migration offering,” said Jason Lee. “We fully expect the packaging market growth to remain robust, driven by consumption increase per capita and increased demand for more sophisticated packaging, for example with more variable data, personalization, special effects, shorter campaigns, etc.”
“As food and medical packaging are considered essential during the pandemic, most countries are still supporting the market,” Sota concluded. “With this in mind, the growth of packaging inks is relatively strong compared to publication/commercial inks.”
A look at the Top International Ink Companies in this issue drives this home: Four of the world’s seven largest ink manufacturers – DIC Corporation, Toyo Ink Group, Sakata INX, and T&K Toka – are headquartered in Japan, and have major operations throughout the region. hubergroup, the sixth-largest ink global supplier, is the largest ink manufacturer in India.
The Asia-Pacific region is not heterogeneous. China is the largest economy in the region and will have its own separate Ink World report in our September-October 2020 issue. Japan and India are major ink producers, with South Asia, Southeast Asia and ANZ (Australia-New Zealand) growing at their own pace.
Of course, that economic growth would have been expected again had the past 12 months been a typical year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is turning everything upside down. Supply chains are disrupted, while packaging ink demand is on the rise.
COVID-19 and Ink Manufacturers
COVID-19 has impacted the ink industry in a variety of ways.
“The graphic arts market performed decently in the Asia-Pacific region throughout Q1 2020,” said Masamichi Sota, executive officer, GM Printing Material Products Division, DIC Corporation. “However, we are finding that its performance has steadily declined since the last week of March. We have also found that while some countries in the region have been greatly impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, other markets have been affected minimally.
“We’ve seen that those countries that implemented a lockdown have had a larger impact on the ink market than others,” said Sota. “For example, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Pakistan, among others, have had the greatest impact. However, as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam have remained open, these countries have had less of an impact.”
“The plants in China, India and the Philippines were temporarily closed by the government,” said Katsuya Tanaka, GM – International Operations Department of the Corporate Planning Division of Sakata INX Corp. “As a result, production as well as sales volume decreased. After that, they have been gradually reopened and the plants in China operate almost as usual. In the overall Asia region, packaging demand has been boosted and the shipment volume of packaging ink has been increased somewhat because of the COVID-19 ‘stay at home’ requirement.”
hubergroup’s corporate communications team in Asia reported that the graphic arts market in the Asia-Pacific region is a mix of some businesses doing well and some witnessing a decline.
“COVID-19 has changed the dynamics further,” hubergroup added. “The packaging segment in offset, UV and liquid inks continues to grow. Newspaper inks and sheetfed commercial printing is declining and the scenario does not seem to get better from here soon.
“There has been a significant impact in ink operations in the region with respect to both demand (significant drop in commercial printing) and supply (labor, materials and transportation hampered at different times in different countries of the region),” hubergroup’s corporate communications team in Asia noted. “Logistics is still a challenge due to port-related issues, leading to a shortage of raw materials and hampering outbound cargoes/dispatches. Printing inks as an essential component of packaging are part of the essential commodities like food, pharma, hygiene, etc. This helped ink companies to maintain a certain level of operations even during severe lockdowns.”
“There have been two main impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ashish Pradhan, president India and Greater China for Siegwerk. “On the one hand, we see an impact from the supply side, where ink companies have faced difficulties to keep their operations going in the face of government restrictions, labor shortage as well as raw material and finished goods logistics challenges. On the other hand, we see an impact from the demand side, where printers and brand owners are still trying to stabilize their operations due to similar challenges faced by Siegwerk and other ink manufacturers, still coping with suppressed demand.”
Hirofumi Ozaki, department manager of T&K Toka’s Overseas Department, noted that COVID-19 has had a major impact.
“The impact of COVID-19 border measures implemented in many countries has had a major impact on the supply chain,” added Ozaki. “For the same reason, many of our customers have been forced to suspend or restrict operations due to the suspension of supply of materials and restrictions on the movement of workers, and the sales volume of ink has slowed down significantly.”
“Unlike other years, especially in 2020, from the second quarter of this year, because of the lockdown in each country, ink sales dropped down 20% to 30%, maybe even more than that. Here in Korea, we are almost living as usual, but there are some industries impacted, so the print industry also got damaged,” said Charlie Lee, head of DEERS I/Daihan Ink’s Overseas Sales Department’s team.
Jason Lee, CEO and president, Kwang Myung Ink Co., Ltd. (KMI), reported that COVID-19 significantly affected the APAC market.
“We now expect the decline of the publication market to accelerate,” said Jason Lee. “However, we think the sheetfed packaging market will bounce back and show further growth. At the time of writing, we do see signs of recovery in our domestic markets. In response to this scenario, we are enlarging our product portfolio, to include a complete range of heatset, coldset, sheetfed, UV-LED and low migration inks.”
Prior to COVID-19, the Asia-Pacific region was doing fairly well, with packaging on the upswing and publication printing on the decline.
“In most parts of the Asia-Pacific region, the demand for publication printing is stagnant or even constantly declining like elsewhere around the world,” said Pradhan.
“Packaging printing is in turn further increasing in Asia with growth rates of up to 6%-7%. The region still belongs to the fastest growing packaging markets worldwide.”
“The market seems to be shrinking with the conversion of media from analog to digital,” Ozaki observed. “The trend toward on-demand has not changed, as print jobs are becoming small lots and wide variety.”
“In 2019, sales were slightly lower than the previous year,” Charlie Lee said. “The same as usual, ink for commercial printing not so much, ink for packaging is increasing. In our case, we are the strongest heatset ink player in Korea, but many printers, due to no jobs, stop printing by heatset.”
“With the increase in demand from economic growth and population increase, etc., packaging ink sales are increasing overall in the Asian region,” Tanaka said. “Ink for paper media is also growing in India and China. The demand in the digital printing industries for toner and inkjet ink is increasing every year as well.”
Packaging Inks on the Rise
The packaging industry is doing well, which is good news for the ink industry.
Ozaki said that T&K Toka expects the packaging market to continue to expand.
“We believe that packages related to everyday life will remain firm due to the economic growth rate and population increase in the region,” Ozaki said. “In addition, we expect that the impact of COVID-19 will further increase the use of e-commerce in lifestyle. Among them, we especially anticipate the growth of eco-friendly flexible packaging.”
Pradhan noted that overall, packaging printing has undergone substantial growth in Asia in recent years and Siegwerk expects the trend to continue.
“We believe South East Asia and India will take the lead in terms of growth,” Pradhan added. “China, in turn, had a progressive decline in GDP growth rates with a packaging market almost reaching maturity. However, we still consider it to be a large and promising market, which is why we are very active and will further invest in growth going forward.”
“Despite the effects of limited economic activities caused by COVID-19, packaging demand has steadily grown, led by population increase and economic growth,” said Tanaka.
“Packaging is a continuously growing segment,” hubergroup’s corporate communications team in Asia noted. “There has been a temporary disruption due to COVID-19. However, the growth outlook for the packaging segment (rigid and flexible) is strong.”
“Packaging inks continue to be the main growth area, which is why we have placed so much emphasis on our product development activities in the energy curing and low migration offering,” said Jason Lee. “We fully expect the packaging market growth to remain robust, driven by consumption increase per capita and increased demand for more sophisticated packaging, for example with more variable data, personalization, special effects, shorter campaigns, etc.”
“As food and medical packaging are considered essential during the pandemic, most countries are still supporting the market,” Sota concluded. “With this in mind, the growth of packaging inks is relatively strong compared to publication/commercial inks.”
