The ink industry is showing a steady growth trend, and the trend towards environmental protection is becoming increasingly prominent

In recent years, benefiting from the rapid development of China's packaging industry, the ink industry has also been greatly expanded, with production and sales steadily increasing year by year, with an average annual growth rate of over 10%, and showing characteristics of environmental protection. With the deepening of low-carbon economy and green printing, the production and use of green and environmentally friendly ink will become a consensus in the ink and printing industries.

The development of Chinese ink has formed a pattern of coexistence of solvent ink, water-based ink, UV ink, screen printing ink, and offset printing ink. Moreover, under environmental protection requirements, the amount of solvent ink is gradually decreasing, while offset printing ink remains stable. UV series products and water-based ink are showing an upward trend, with the UV ink series showing the most significant increase.

This is mainly reflected in the high level of UV ink printing and the wide range of equipment choices available; It can be printed on almost all equipment such as offset printing, gravure printing, screen printing, flexographic printing, etc. However, water-based ink can only be printed on flexographic or gravure printing. As water-based products require imported high-end equipment to produce fine effects and are expensive, it is not affordable for most printing factories. Therefore, the current market for water-based ink is mainly limited to mid to low end cardboard boxes. From this perspective, it will take time for water-based inks to achieve greater development.

In fact, in order to solve the environmental pollution problems caused by the development of the ink industry, countries have controlled the pollution of ink and harmful substances in the surface film of objects and established relevant regulations. In 2007, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China formulated domestic environmental standards for ink products, taking into account the environmental labeling standards of other countries, providing guidance for the development of the ink industry.

Development characteristics of ink industry

There are four main characteristics of the development of China's ink industry, namely small enterprise scale, a large number of mid to low end products, strong advantages of foreign-funded enterprises, and uneven distribution.

Due to historical reasons, most of China's ink production enterprises are small and medium-sized, private, and township enterprises, scattered in 22 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the country. There are less than a hundred large-scale and high-level enterprises, thus presenting the industry characteristics of multiple manufacturers, small scale, and dispersion.

The small scale of enterprises often results in low production technology and management level, leading to problems such as more mid to low end products, fewer high-end products, more general technology products, and fewer high-tech and high value-added products.

These manufacturers have low production technology and management level, low output, low product grade, and a large and wide range of environmental pollution, making it difficult to meet the needs of modern production and market. So, currently in China's ink market, foreign-funded enterprises have a good market reputation, both in terms of product technology and market size, and also have obvious competitive advantages. Taking the environmental ink market in 2014 as an example, multinational enterprise groups accounted for 47% of sales that year, with the largest market share.

In addition, there is a significant regional imbalance in the development of China's ink industry. The ink industry in East and South China has developed well, with clear competitive advantages in terms of the number of enterprises, sales revenue, and asset size. The regional distribution of ink industry development is closely related to the uneven economic development in China.
 

Factors influencing the ink industry

According to the "Market Demand Forecast and Investment Strategy Analysis Report of China's Ink Industry" released by Forward Industry Research Institute, there are three main favorable factors affecting the development of the ink industry, namely strong support from industrial policies, strong market demand, and new market demand and the opportunities it brings for industry development.

There are also three unfavorable factors that affect the development of the ink industry, the first being fluctuations in raw materials. Although the pricing characteristics of ink products (especially offset printing ink) can ensure stable profits for companies in the industry, significant fluctuations in raw materials will inevitably affect the profit level of companies in the industry.

Secondly, there is a funding bottleneck. The fluctuation of raw material prices, investment barriers, and the continuous improvement of environmental protection requirements in China have put forward higher funding demands for them. However, private enterprises with technological strength in the industry often face significant operational pressure due to their limited financing channels, which cannot fully cope with the impact of changes in operating costs and customer demand scaling.

The third is the impact of new media on the traditional book and newspaper industry. With the emergence of the internet, computers, smartphones, and other new media, the traditional book and newspaper industry worldwide is currently experiencing a crisis. The emergence of new media has greatly reduced the market demand for paper reading materials, thereby affecting the related printing industry. The demand for ink in the book and newspaper publication field has significantly declined.