The current situation and development trend of the

The current situation and development trend of British printing industry (I)

good morning/afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am John brege, now the CEO of Picon company. I am honored to have the opportunity to speak at this important forum in recent years. Thank PEIAC for giving me this opportunity

you may not know us very well. Picon is a British company that provides business support planning and services for the printing, publishing, papermaking and paper processing industries. Our member enterprises vary in size and type, covering many technical fields, including the world-famous Agfa, Heidelberg, HP, Komori and KPG, as well as the famous British manufacturing enterprises such as Edale and timson

picon's most important task is to support our members to expand overseas markets. As the organizer of the overseas industrial exhibition trusted by the British government, we have provided convenience for many British manufacturers to attend this China print 2005. All British manufacturers are looking forward to and welcome visitors to their booths. I'm sure it will be a very successful exhibition

for many members of the British delegation, this is a revisit to their hometown, because we also organized many British business representatives to attend China print 2001 in 2001. Today, four years later, we are here again, which shows that the Chinese market, which is developing rapidly, is very important for British manufacturers

as the organizer of IPEX, the largest printing industry exhibition in the world, Picon has always paid close attention to comprehensive international exhibitions. The next IPEX will be held in Birmingham, England, 11 months later. As the organizer of IPEX, according to my current understanding of China print 2005, I think we have encountered challenges from the global industry in the 21st century

"challenge" leads to two themes of my speech today. First, introduce the latest situation of the current British printing industry; The second is to look forward to the development of the UK and global printing industry in the next few years

let me briefly introduce several groups of statistics first, so that you can have a general understanding of the overall scale and composition of the UK printing industry. Next, I will analyze the mainstream trend of today's printing industry and the problems and challenges therein

first of all, let me introduce the scale of the British printing industry. In 2003, the total turnover of the printing, publishing, paper processing and related industries in the UK was 45billion pounds (about 80billion dollars), becoming the fifth largest industry in the UK. In 2003, it contributed £ 608million (more than $1billion) to the UK's trade surplus

looking at the printing industry alone, according to the latest statistical results of prodcom in the European Union, the sales volume of the British printing industry in 2003 reached 12.25 billion pounds (US $22billion). Among them, the largest market is the printing of advertisements and related materials, followed by books, manuals, leaflets, and other important products such as program lists, bills, magazines, etc. The largest export market of Britain is the United States, followed by the Netherlands, Italy ranks third, and Germany ranks fourth

at present, there are about 12400 printing enterprises in the UK, with about 170000 employees. Data show that small printing enterprises account for the vast majority, of which 95% of the companies employ no more than 50 employees, and only 470 enterprises or industries combined with different substrates (such as film or spunbonded fabric) in other situations have more than 50 employees

I hope these figures can help you have a general understanding of the scale of the UK printing industry, but they do not cover the really interesting things of the UK printing industry in 2005. I will talk about this next

as mentioned earlier, Picon is the sponsor of IPEX, which is our business. We have been working tirelessly to better understand and adapt to the development of the market. Recently, we have begun to study and plan the blueprint of IPEX 2006 next year. Our purpose is to ensure that the IPEX exhibition can truly reflect the development of the industry, rather than making it up subjectively

we have talked with a large number of participants who are interested in IPEX, including exhibitors, printing enterprises, and some industry experts. Ask them what important problems they have encountered in their work, and ask them to predict the impact of these problems on the printing industry in the future

if I say that today's printing industry is in a period of transformation, I don't think everyone here will be too surprised by my argument. This transformation began 20 years ago with the emergence of apple computer, Aldus PageMaker software, postscript language, laser printers and other products, which created the desktop publishing system, which is the first step in the solid and tenacious opening of the printing industry. Our customers also feel the significance of transformation. They originally accepted traditional typesetting and color reproduction services, but with the development of Internet and other technologies, they realized new services from the field of graphic reproduction

20 years ago, printing was an independent and self-sufficient handicraft industry. In the production process, everyone, including customers, had their own clear position. Nowadays, printing has increasingly become an important branch of the global information industry based on the digital technology of information and wireless communication technology. When it comes to the "digital revolution" of the printing industry, many people think it has been completed, but in fact it is still affecting the printing industry in the form of digital printing, desktop printing, distributed workgroup printing, wireless communication technology and ubiquitous interconnection. Under the influence of these technologies, the chain relationship between equipment suppliers, printing enterprises, print buyers and print consumers has been constantly disrupted and rebuilt

such rapid changes and fluctuations make it difficult to analyze and predict. As a well-known expert said, "I think I know what will happen in the next 20 years, but I don't know what will happen in the next 20 months"

through talking with many colleagues, we have found out the most important factor affecting the printing industry in Britain today. I think this is also closely related to the printing industry in many countries around the world

first of all, it is not surprising that the number of enterprises is decreasing. The printing industry in Britain and other developed countries is a mature industry characterized by fierce competition and meager profit margin; At the same time, in recent years, related technologies have developed at an alarming rate. In recent years, these factors have led to the number of printing enterprises decreasing, the size of the company gradually becoming smaller, and the turnover gradually declining. This makes printing enterprises not only have no more funds to invest in new technologies, but also have no time and resources to keep up with the pace of technological development or evaluate the impact of Technological Development on the printing industry

medium scale printing enterprises are also vulnerable. They lack the ability to compete with large printing enterprises, which is also the reason why they have become the acquisition targets of large printing enterprises. In terms of business strategy, their flexibility is sometimes inferior to that of some excellent small printing enterprises. As a result, in the process of investigating the scale of printing enterprises, we found that the number of medium-sized printing enterprises has been declining as a result of mergers, joint operations or alliance operations

at the same time, we have also seen many large printing enterprises merging with each other, mainly to cope with the growing global printing market (such as the packaging and printing market) and many other factors. Recently, the so-called "super factory" has a trend of accumulating global production capacity. At present, two such super factories worthy of attention are under construction. First, polestar's super web printing plants in Leeds and Yorkshire are expanding. After completion, they will be able to accommodate six 64 page printing presses, making them the largest enterprise in Europe. In addition, it also invested 120million pounds ($216million) to build a gravure printing plant in Sheffield; In the next few years, we will continue to install 8 printing presses with the highest stress, also known as tensile strength, in Sheffield