How big is the European printing industry

A question often posed to me is: how big is the European printing industry. The answer depends very much on the markets you want to include. The obvious ones in the graphic arts industry include Graphic Arts print (which subsumes in the statistics commercial print and also more specialised printers like book, catalogue, forms or magazine printers). The only application specific type of printing company split out in the statistics is newspaper print. Prepress and postpress companies contribute to the graphic arts industry revenue, although strictly speaking they do not print. Important print producers that should be added, while not included in graphic arts statistics, are label and packaging printers – although commercial printers produce smaller volumes of label and packaging print as well as part of their services. Often overlooked in the statistics are photocopy services and in-house printing sites, the latter including data centre print.

There are some markets more difficult to size. Direct mail is produced as part of commercial print but also in advertising services – a portion that cannot be easily identified. Décor print (like wallpaper, furnishing, ceramics or textile) is missing as well, as the value of the print produced is hidden in the goods production. Also some small or niche packaging segments lack a good data basis.

In the view I recommend, those 10 segments contribute to the European printing industry revenue:

  • Printing of newspapers
  • Graphic Arts Print
  • Pre-press and pre-media services
  • Binding and related services
  • Folding carton
  • Flex Pack printing
  • Corrugated printing
  • Label printing
  • Photocopy services
  • In-house printing

Graphic Arts print (including publication and specialty print) contributes the biggest single chunk to the European printing revenue. Label and packaging printers combined add about the same amount (although some additional packaging output stems from commercial print, as mentioned above). The high substrate costs in label and packaging print drive up the revenues, while by surface area printed, commercial print would a much higher. Other segments are noticeably smaller but still add to the pie.

Share of Europe print industry sectors
Europe print industry sectors by revenue size

Sizing the European Printing Industry

The European printing industry is big, no doubt. However, it is a surprisingly difficult task to determine how big the printing industry in Europe actually is. The available data is incomplete, non-comparable, or even non-existent. As a result gaps have to be filled in, data normalised (to make it comparable), different sourced reconciled, and overlaps in segments sorted out. In short, some in-depth industry expertise is required. Digitalprintexpert.de undertook a 2024 European Print Industry Sizing based on the latest data, facilitated by 20 years of experience in print industry sizing by Ralf Schlözer. He is also the European Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and contributor for Inkjet Insight and other printing industry publications.

The data has been compiled from a variety of sources, complemented by estimates and forecasts, and formatted in a way to make all countries and segments comparable. Excel pivot tables allow for straightforward comparisons and custom selections, instead of having to copy and paste pre-defined tables. The data is based on the year 2022, the most recent year for which a sufficient data basis is available.

Covered in the report are the following countries:

Print – not a small industry

Frequently, even within the printing industry, I hear that print is a small industry. That is certainly true when looking at the single print shop or even at a range of commercial printers. Adding up the pieces there is no doubt however, that print is a not a small industry.

The printing industry, as it is defined by the official statistics, has about 631,000 employees in the EU including the UK according to Eurostat for 2018. This includes prepress and finishing. It does not include big parts of packaging print, in-house print, copy shops and print in marketing and direct mail agencies.

employees print industry
EU print industry sizing