With the rise of new printing industries such as commercial printing, cultural creative printing, digital printing, and new media printing, the application field of ink is also expanding, and the consumer demand of the industry is also growing rapidly, and the market demand and consumption of ink are also growing, and will continue to expand in the future.
 
According to the report, the global printing ink market will grow by 6.7% per year throughout the period from 2022 to 2032. During this period, the market value will almost double, growing from $18.71 billion in 2022 to $35.93 billion in 2032.
 
From 2012 to 2022, the annual output of China's ink industry increased from 615,000 tons to 880,000 tons year by year, and the total annual sales of enterprises above the scale increased from 30.5 billion yuan to 50 billion yuan, indicating that the economic environment of the ink industry is relatively good, and the scale of the industry is gradually growing. In the case of global economic malaise, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, the ink industry still maintains a growth trend from 2020 to 2022, indicating that the development of the ink industry is strong.
 
 
Europe is leading the way in oil-based inks
For some time, anything that can be called "oil-based" has been a hot growth prospect, but with the rise of vegetable oils as the wellspring of modern formulations, the oil-based inks market now has good growth prospects, with Europe leading the way with its sustainability and green agenda.
 
The latest study, the Global Market Report for Oil-based Printing Inks 2024, sheds light on the future direction of the sector, focusing on the type of oil, application and end-user industries. Overall, the market size of oil-based printing inks in 2024 was $12.47 billion and is expected to reach $14.64 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.1%.
 
Although Europe is the leading regional market, Asia is showing great interest in ink formulations for vegetable oils such as soybean oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, canola oil and palm oil, as they form a sustainable basis for ink formulations and are a good alternative to petrochemical source inks.
 
The wide variety of materials used in the packaging industry drives much of the demand for oil-based inks because they are versatile and durable, and some companies are already formulating new high-tech alternative inks for the electronics industry and barcode printing, with the goal of saving energy and increasing efficiency, respectively.
 
The fastest growth is in UV-curable inks, which are most widely used in packaging and labeling because they are suitable for plastics, glass and metals. Their clean environmental characteristics make them the perfect choice in an increasingly green world.
 
Offset inks continue to be the largest market for ink types and remain popular in books, magazines, brochures and commercial printing uses. Consumer-oriented industries such as packaging, advertising and publishing drive the majority of consumption in North America, the largest regional ink market.
 
 
China's future ink market development
With the development of social economy and technological progress, the future of China's ink industry will usher in new development opportunities.
 
First of all, China's ink industry will strengthen the research and development of water-based ink. With the improvement of environmental awareness, the production of water-based ink can reduce air pollution, and the cost of water-based ink is lower, so it can attract more investors. Secondly, China's ink industry will strengthen its scientific and technological level and accelerate the pace of technological innovation. China's ink industry will deeply implement "intelligent manufacturing", accelerate the improvement of product quality and price, and provide consumers with better products and services. In addition, China's ink industry will also strengthen foreign cooperation to improve the technical level. In this regard, the industry will carry out technical exchanges and project cooperation abroad to promote the development of China's ink industry.
 
With the new requirements of China's economic development, technological innovation in the ink industry and the support of national policies, the structure of China's ink market has gradually changed, and high-quality products in the industry will achieve import substitution, and domestic enterprises will occupy more market share. In addition, China's ink industry will pay more attention to adjusting the product structure, mainly to improve the concentration of production, increase research and development efforts, improve the scientific and technological content and product quality and product stability, so that it can better adapt to today's multi-color, high-speed, fast drying, non-polluting, low consumption of modern printing industry needs.