Full-Colour Variable Printing Market Doubles

The Industry Measure has released an update to its variable data printing / 1:1 print personalization report, detailing its growth and increasing sophistication.

The Industry Measure has released an update to its variable data printing / 1:1 print personalization report, detailing its growth and increasing sophistication.

The report states that whilst the percentage of graphic arts firms overall who produce VDP jobs in-house is nearly identical to 18 months earlier, the percentage doing full-colour variable-image, or variable-text jobs with one to 12 fields has more than doubled over three survey periods.

The percentage of digital print shops (defined as shops with full-colour digital production presses or DI presses) doing those applications has increased by 71 per cent and there are said to be strong volume increases (on a percentage basis) within business segments, as well.

According to the report amongst digital printers focusing almost exclusively on full-colour marketing applications, only four per cent of them saw no change in their volumes at all.

Overwhelmingly, digital printers saw their volumes of full-colour VDP jobs with one to 12 variable fields growing, and whilst some shops did see their volumes declining, that was because those jobs are becoming more complex - moving in to the 13+ variable field category, where more than one-third of digital print shops saw their volumes increasing.

In addition to The Industry Measure's regularly asked questions about VDP / 1:1 print personalisation as a sales opportunity, the report includes details of commercial printers and trade shops and the percentage that have produced VDP in-house in the last 12 months.

The report also shows the level of sophistication of jobs, from simple mail merges to full-colour variable-image and variable text work, as well as the mean and median percentages of VDP jobs that are commercial as opposed to transactional.

The Industry Measure added that the survey also expands on the primary production technology used to output jobs and changes in the production volumes of VDP jobs, as well as the percentage of overall revenues represented by VDP, together with the percentage that have produced VDP in-house in the last 12 months.

Attitudes towards digital printing - its quality, colour matching, colour consistency, durability and gloss - are also explored, as are the perceived benefits and drawbacks of VDP jobs.

The publishing sector is also exmained, together with the percentage of those that have produced VDP in-house in the last 12 months and its relative sophistication and the type of products for which VDP is used (for instance, covers, interiors and promotional materials).

There are notes about the data for recurring sales opportunities and business challenges,which is provided on a historical basis.

For VDP-specific non-recurring, specialty questions, the printing and design and production data are compared year to year, or to the most recent time the question was asked.

That is the first time those questions have been asked in the company's publishing surveys.

Back to top