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Weekly UpdatesEven though the inkjet ink market is perhaps the fastest growing segment for ink manufacturers, the recession still had an impact on business.
"In terms of ink volume, EFI started falling off in the fourth quarter," said Scott Schinlever, vice president/general manager of EFI's ink business. "The key drivers for our customers are advertising and promotional printing, and those markets bottomed out in January. Since then, we are seeing a recovery in business, as many of our customers are printing more."
Brad Kisner, president of INX Digital International Co., said that overall, business for INX Digital has been strong.
"We had a very good first quarter to begin 2009, and at the end of May, results for the second quarter looked promising," Mr. Kisner said. "We are ahead of last year's pace and have good reason to believe that we are on a market-share run."
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"We have enjoyed excellent growth in our global markets," said Phil McGugan, vice president, global sales and marketing for Nazdar. "For Nazdar, we continue to see excellent growth of UV digital inks and expansion in all our export markets."
"Fujifilm Sericol continued to see sales growth in solvent and UV inkjet inks in the past year, although at a slower pace than the growth rates achieved in previous years," said Pete Kenehan, director of Fujifilm Sericol's Inkjet Systems Group (ISG). "While our priority is focused on the rapidly growing UV inkjet segment, our sales of solvent digital inks also recorded significant growth as many brands of solvent roll printers switched to our Color+ line of aftermarket inks."
"SunJet, Sun Chemical's inkjet inks business, fared well during the past year and continues to innovate and be the market leader in fluid deposition technology for the global inkjet market," said Laurie Geldenhuys, business director and general manager, Sun Chemical. "The continued growth and success of SunJet has depended largely on the wide and super-wide formats in the past. However, over the past year, we have seen significant growth in new and emerging markets and have launched several new products to satisfy these needs. These include products for the narrow web label market, edible inks, photovoltaics, printed electronics, an increased product offering for coding and marking applications, and inks to meet the needs for new printhead technologies."
"Collins Ink had a good 2008 and it appears we will have a decent 2009," said Lawrence Gamblin, president of Collins Ink. "While our sales are relatively flat on a year to year basis, I was recently told that 'Flat is the new growth.'"
In an important move, Collins acquired the assets of Hexion Specialty Chemical's UV inkjet business earlier this year.
"Hexion's product portfolio fits perfectly with Collins," Mr. Gamblin said. "Whereas Collins produces virtually all kinds of inkjet inks, including water-, solvent- and oil-based inks for thermal, piezo and continuous inkjet printers, Collins really had no presence in the fast growing UV inkjet ink market. Hexion's wide range of inks would appear to complete Collins' portfolio."
Literally right across the street from HP's Corvallis, OR headquarters, ImTech is an ink and systems specialist as well as one of HP's licensed OEMs and ink manufacturers. The company specializes in inkjet engineering, and is growing rapidly, most recently ranked the 48th fastest growing privately held company in Oregon by the Portland Business Journal.
"The thermal inkjet market is certainly growing for us. One driver is the continued government regulatory pressure to control supply chain identity and the market's move to shorter manufacturing runs with highly varied marking, which makes a great case for inkjet printing," said Leston Faulds, ImTech's director of sales and marketing. "We were able to grow by five people even in a declining market, and most recently, we added two longtime HP chemists who will help with our ink development."
Stephanie Duvivier, marketing director for One Solution S.A., a Belgium-based inkjet ink and equipment manufacturer, noted that the company's ink business grew significantly in 2008-2009, mainly in terms of new printing systems converted to One Solution UV-curable inks.
"We are supplying today more than 100 UV printers with our inks all over Europe," Ms. Duvivier said. "In addition, we have recently finalized the development of a new wide format UV flatbed printer, the One Solution Vega, which we have presented for the first time in Fespa Digital 09."
Economic Pressures And Digital Technologies
Financing new digital equipment has been one of the difficulties facing the inkjet market.
"Clearly the economic downturn has caused a fall-off in capital equipment sales," Mr. McGugan said. " However, we saw healthy growth in our market share of alternative/third party digital inks."
"From October 2008 to March 2009, we have faced a significant reduction in ink consumption and machinery," Ms. Duvivier said. "On the other hand, we have converted a large number of new printers looking for better pricing. It seems that since April 2009 the situation is getting better and our customers start to use their equipment at full capacity."
"From a traditional market viewpoint, companies are always looking at new technologies to compete with other companies that already have digital capabilities and are pursuing opportunities for label and narrow web business," Mr. Kisner said. "Although we are seeing new capabilities in the digital market, the emphasis appears to be on improving certain technologies or developing products that address the traditional market.
Companies are looking to buy equipment and manufacturers that offer creative financing packages will benefit both parties. Needless to say, our financial incentives have been very well received."
"The economic downturn has had a severe impact on the digital printing market and has resulted in a reduced level of activity in machine placements," Mr. Geldenhuys reported. "Although the downturn has been more significant in the graphics market, the investment in new areas of application for inkjet continues, and SunJet has been very active in supporting and developing these opportunities."
"After a strong start and significant growth in the first half of 2008, the global credit squeeze and the inability of some customers to secure financing reduced overall demand for new inkjet equipment in the second half of the year," Mr. Kenehan noted. "However, despite the credit squeeze and market downturn, the market continues to shift from solvent to UV. This trend will continue as market demand increases for higher quality, higher productivity and more environmentally friendly ink solutions such as UV.
"Digital is also having a negative impact on screen printing due to the cost effectiveness of smaller press runs," Mr. Kenehan added. "This trend fuels digital growth since jobs that were previously screen printed are now being digitally printed."
"A lot of the negative impact has been around financing, but we have customers who are investing in the face of the downturn and consolidating," Mr. Schinlever concluded. "Leading-edge technology tends to overcome economic downturns."
By David Savastano
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