Global Market Prospects
The U.S. printing and publishing industry should have ample international trade and investment opportunitiesover the next 5 years.
Economies in Latin America and along the Pacific Rim are expected to improve, creating increased demand for U.S. printed product exports.
Greater enforcement of nternational copyright protection should take place in Asia, the Middle East, and the newly independent states
of the former Soviet Union, offering U.S. book publishers wider markets for their products. Growth in the global economy should
expand foreign markets for U.S. consumer goods, providing the global advertising support required by U.S. periodical publishers
to establish or license more of their titles overseas. In 2006, advertising was the chief revenue producer for commercial printing.
In spite of ompetition from other non-print advertising, print advertising continues to grow as print presents greater consumer
targeting and the familiarity and portability that many consumers still prefer. Moreover, print is considered to be able to
cut through the confusion of other advertising media. Developments in total advertising expenditures also guide print revenues,
although to a lesser degree compared to earlier times, taking into consideration current competition
between print and electronic media advertising. Label and wrapper printing are likely to put up the strongest
growth through 2011 because of concentration in customized labeling and other higher value printing and domain graphics on such packaging.
US commercial printing revenues are expected to boost 1.3 percent per year to $82 billion in 2011.
Business analysts have come up with an overall general forecast on the commercial printing industry growth:
1.35% of print and prepress firms cite “growing sales/getting new business”as a top business challenge—
a strong number, but less important to respondents than “pricing”
2. 28% of print and prepress firms cite “making our Web site more interactive”as a top sales opportunity, jumping from fourth to first place
3. 21% of print and prepress firms say they offer some kind of new media or non-print services
4. 6% of print and prepress firms plan to invest in Web-to-print in the next 12 months
5. The number one type of customer cited by print and prepress firms is “non-profits or local community organizations”
