Print Is Still Showing Growth: New Ceresana Study on the Global Market for Printing Inks

KONSTANZ, Germany - Nov. 27, 2025 - PRLog -- Are young people returning to printed books, or at least to books-on-demand or photo books? In any case, the decline in this sector of the printing industry is slowing down. By contrast, the slump in magazine printing and newspaper printing has even accelerated since last year. The latest edition of Ceresana's global printing inks market report shows opposing trends: Publication printing continues to decrease, including the printing of advertising brochures and catalogs. However, demand for other print products is increasing. Growing consumption, particularly in the emerging markets, is driving packaging printing, for example of labels. Not only packaging of all kinds is printed, but also products such as decorative papers and textiles. Ceresana forecasts that global demand for printing inks will increase by an average of 0.9% annually until 2034.

Opportunities and Challenges for Printing Inks

E-commerce and the packaging boom are driving demand for shipping packaging made of flexible plastics and corrugated cardboard in particular, but also for shrink labels, shrink sleeves, aseptic packaging, beverage packaging, and specially coated packaging paper. With smaller batches and more frequent redesigns, the number of print jobs grows, while at the same time print runs decrease as product variants increase. In addition to the "explosion" of SKU identification codes, government regulations and increasingly stringent traceability requirements are accelerating the need for functional and variable printing solutions. Flexographic and inkjet printing processes in particular are benefiting from the fact that flexibility and individualization are becoming more and more important. UV flexographic printing and high-speed inkjet offer a technology upgrade, for example the direct printing of 3D objects. When it comes to short runs and commercial printing such as in the office sector, digital printing with electrophotography is also showing solid growth.

Green Printing with Bio-Based Printing Inks

The use of energy-saving and more environmentally friendly printing processes is increasing significantly. VOC-free products that do not release any volatile organic compounds, i.e. water-based printing inks and radiation-curing UV printing inks, benefit from the increasingly strict labeling requirements and regulations for chemicals and food contact materials. Bio-based printing inks do not release toxic heavy metals. A reduced mineral oil content is not only beneficial for recycling or composting paper packaging. Bio-based solvents are at least partially made from renewable raw materials such as vegetable oils or alcohols. Ceresana's current market overview provides concrete printing inks market data, e.g. figures on the individual printing ink types.

Further information about the 6th edition of the market study "Printing Inks – World": https://ceresana.com/en/produkt/printing-inks-market-repo...