Printing Machinery & Equipment Manufacturing Industry Overview

Excerpt from Printing Machinery & Equipment Manufacturing Report

Companies in this industry manufacture printing machinery and equipment, including printing presses and binding machinery. Major companies include Goss International, Hewlett-Packard, Presstek, and Xerox (all based in the US); Canon, Fuji Xerox, Komori, and Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho (Japan); and Heidelberger, Koenig & Bauer, and manroland (Germany).

Competitive Landscape

Demand is driven by commercial print volume, which depends primarily on advertising and other business needs for printed material. Profitability of individual companies depends primarily on manufacturing efficiencies. Large companies enjoy economies of scale in purchasing and manufacturing. Small companies can compete effectively by serving niche markets, such as envelope printing. The industry is concentrated: the 50 largest companies generate about 75 percent of revenue.

Products, Operations & Technology

Major products are printing presses and related parts, accessories, and attachments (about 85 percent of industry revenue) and binding machinery (10 percent). The predominant printing press technology used is offset lithography, but the industry is transitioning to digital presses for many applications. Other types of printing technologies include rotogravure, flexography, screen printing, and letterpress. Rotogravure is used for high-quality printing and is expensive. Flexography is used primarily for printing on packaging materials. Screen printing has applications ranging from art prints to stationary. An ancient printing technique, letterpress remains popular among hobbyists, but virtually no new equipment is being manufactured.