China's printing industry economic status and development trend

I. Economic operation status of printing industry

Under the impact of economic growth slowing down, enterprises' production costs increasing, as well as the accelerated process of digitization and networking, China's printing industry is facing a series of adverse factors and needs to seek a new way of transformation and breakthrough. In this context, innovation, upgrading, centralized integration will become the main development trend of the printing industry in the next few years, and the total reduction of printing may also become a fact.

In 2016, the total scale assets of China's printing industry reached 559.015 billion yuan. The total output value of the industry was 788.185 billion yuan.

With the changes of The Times and the improvement of national economy, the total assets of China's printing industry showed a gradual rise from 2011 to 2016, with a year-on-year growth of 10% from 507.9 billion yuan in 2015 to 559.015 billion yuan in 2016.

In 2013, the loss surface of the printing industry was only 11.2%. In the first half of 2018, the loss was as high as 18.4%, and the amount of loss also soared. It is expected that the number of enterprises in the industry will decrease in the second half of 2018, and the number and amount of loss-making enterprises will further increase. As of the first half of 2018, there are a total of 5624 enterprises in the printing industry. Among them, there were 1,037 loss-making enterprises with a total loss of 2.18 billion yuan.

The first half of 2018 continued the trend of 2017, and the growth rate of main business revenue increased, with the main business revenue reaching 342.9 billion yuan, up 6.7% year-on-year. It is expected that in the second half of 2018, the business revenue of printing and recording media reproduction owners will increase slightly, and the national main business revenue will exceed 350 billion yuan.

In 2016, the total profit of the printing industry decreased by 4.5% year on year. In 2017, the profit of the printing and recording media reproduction industry increased significantly. The total profit reached 55.872 billion yuan, and the total annual profit is expected to exceed 60 billion yuan.

In 2016, the gross margin of China's printing industry fell to 15.1%, with a year-on-year growth of 0.2 percentage points in 2017. The print and record media reproduction industry is expected to maintain gross profit of around 14% in 2018.

In 2013, the profit of the printing industry was 7.9%. In 2017, it was down 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. Industry profit margins are expected to fall below 6 per cent for the full year.

Ii. Development trend of China's printing industry in the future

In the next 5 years, the market environment of China's printing industry will be severe. On the one hand, the demand fluctuation is caused by the low speed of economy in the process of domestic macroeconomic structural adjustment and growth mode transformation. On the other hand, the change of environmental protection governance and industry entry threshold will increase the operating cost of enterprises and increase the uncertainty of long-term development. The development of China's printing industry has entered a new stage.

1. Development trend of printing industry

(1) The industry maintains a moderate growth rate

China's national economic Development Plan (2016-2020) sets an average annual GDP growth rate of 6.5 percent. Based on the correlation between the growth of the printing market and the growth of macroeconomic GDP, as well as the observation of China's printing enterprises and regional markets, the average annual growth rate of China's printing industry in the next five years is likely to remain between 5-7%.

Book printing will maintain a slow and steady growth, periodical printing will continue to decline, and newspaper printing will decline rapidly; Packaging and label printing to maintain moderate growth; Commercial printing has maintained a moderate rate of growth.

(2) Rapid increase of industry concentration

The proportion of main business income of printing enterprises above the scale in China's printing industry will increase from 63% in 2013 and 72% in 2015 to 80% in 2020.

Publishing and printing will be the field with the fastest increase in industry concentration. More than 90% of the printing of publications will be undertaken by publications printing enterprises above the scale (740), while printing enterprises below the scale will be difficult to survive in this field. Offset printing is still the main means of production in this field.

The change of government environmental protection policies and industry access policies will accelerate the production capacity integration and layout adjustment among packaging and printing enterprises, and promote the development of the industry towards scale and specialization.

(3) The integration effect of The Internet platform on the market is gradually emerging

Commercial printing is the most active and potential field in China's printing industry. The key to the future development of commercial printing enterprises is to transform the business model from printing manufacturer to marketing service provider. The Internet has created a platform and provided technical support for the integration of traditional printing and print-on-demand production, as well as the communication between production enterprises and consumer groups.

The traditional publication printing enterprise transfers to the commercial printing domain to accelerate; The connection between digital fast printing enterprises and traditional printing enterprises is strengthened; New companies from the IT and Internet sectors are integrating the old sectors.

2. Development trend of printing equipment and equipment manufacturing industry

How to seize the opportunities provided by China's economic transformation and technological progress, give full play to the advantages of local manufacturing industry that is close to the market and understands the demand, and adhere to technical innovation based on professional focus will become the main characteristics of the future development of China's printing equipment and equipment manufacturing industry.

(1) Printing equipment manufacturing industry

Intelligent post-press system, ink-jet printing equipment, environmentally friendly gravure printing equipment will become the future development of hot spots. Making full use of the opportunities provided by the huge domestic printing market, being good at discovering a "pain point" in the industrial processing chain, concentrating resources and devoting ourselves to solving the "pain point" will be the effective path for local printing equipment manufacturing enterprises to transform and upgrade.

(2) Printing equipment manufacturing industry

To adapt to the demand of packaging printing market and further adjust the product structure is the main trend of printing equipment manufacturing industry in the future. Printing plate manufacturing this local flexo plate material quality will be significantly improved, the output and varieties continue to increase; Offsctdruckeren plate output annual average growth rate of 4%, the industry concentration rate is further improved; Printing ink manufacturing industry in the next five years, the Chinese mainland printing ink output growth rate of 5% on average. Ink product development focus is food packaging ink, label printing ink. On the basis of elimination of benzene-based solvent based inks, water-based inks, UV inks, EB inks, plant-based inks and other environmentally friendly inks will have a rapid development.