Digital Book Printing: Trends in North America

Transcription

1 Digital Book Printing: Trends in North America IT Strategies, Inc Marco Boer Vice-President May

2 Helping to Create the Specification for Next Generation Printers IT Strategies, Inc. is a digital printing market research firm and consultancy, with a focus on nonconsumer printer markets. Established in 1992 and under the same private ownership since that time, IT Strategies has been a partner of Inkjet production printing manufacturers in helping to identify, size, and qualify new market opportunities for Inkjet printing technologies 2

3 Agenda Book print volumes and a world of choice Perspectives from Stakeholders on Book Printing Publishers Book manufacturers Consumers The role of Digital Printing technology The significance of ink jet technology in book printing Experiences with ink jet technology Opportunities for innovation 3

4 Worldwide Book Pages (M of Equivalent letter-size impressions) 450, , , , , , , ,000 50, , Analog Printed Pages (M) 423, , , , , ,361 Digitally Printed (M) 33,345 39,014 45,646 53,406 62,485 73,107 Total Lost pages (M) -14,135-13,711-13,300-12,901-12,514-12,138 Note: about 28B pages are printed on EP; 25B on IJ 4

5 A Fragmented World of Choice Printed Books Mega-sellers are gone E- Books Battling for share Audio Books 5

6 US Publishers Perspective on Books Publishers are pragmatic when it comes to their perceptions of consumer preferences for print or electronic books. While printed books offer more tactile and sharing benefits, the ability to instantly serve the impulse buyers desire for purchasing a book trumps all other advantages of printed books. Ultimately books that consumers have an emotional connection to (classics, local history, self-published books) will continue to be dominate by print format. Other titles that come and go are better served economically in e-book format. Note: Publishers have concerns about disproportionate influence over book sales control. Ultimately it is in Amazon s interest to sell content at least cost and highest price possible, leading to desire to reduce pass-through paper, ink, labor, and logistics. Printed book distribution channel fragmentation allows publishers more pricing control. Amazon s influence could influence rate of printed book decline. Source: Ricoh Production Printing Systems white paper on book printing researched by IT Strategies,

7 US Book Mfrs. Perspective on There is no single book printing market and as a result book manufacturers tend to specialize in select vertical markets. Trade book printers see two main pressure points affecting volume of printed books: 1) pressure from other forms of entertainment as people don t read as much as they used to 2) a demographic driven shift where the younger generation prefers to rent rather than own physical things K-12 book printers are relatively protected by regulatory entrenchment (No Child Left Behind Act) which makes is cumbersome to move entire public school districts to electronic books. More critically, economic considerations prevent most school districts from being able to purchase both e-readers and electronic content for all their students Books 7 College text books are likely to migrate fastest to electronic technology, mainly because the economic business models make it in both the college and publishers interest to move to e-books. It is not student preference, it is about control of the value chain. Source: Ricoh Production Printing Systems white paper on book printing researched by IT Strategies, 2013

8 US Consumer Perspectives on Books Pendulum is swinging in favor of e-books Instant access and portability key consumer drivers Printed books physical attribute benefit of browsing, sharing lend itself to gifting Concern about power of retail control by single retailer: Amazon It is in the interest of publishers to keep printed books/distribution viable in order to retain some pricing control 9 Out of 10 respondents purchase e-books at Amazon.com Only 2 out of 10 printed books bought at Amazon.com. Printed book sales remain more fragmented 8 Source: Ricoh Production Printing Systems white paper on book printing researched by IT Strategies, 2013

9 Self-Publishing Can you foresee writing a book and self-publishing it in the next 10 years? [IF YES] How would you publish it? % of Self-Publishers In both printed and electronic format 55% In electronic book format only 40% In printed book format only 5% N=820 responses 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Source: Ricoh Production Printing Systems white paper on book printing researched by IT Strategies, 2013

10 CF Ink Jet WW 2012 vs Source of Page Volume 600,000,000, ,000,000, ,000,000, ,000,000, ,000,000,000 Book pages 100,000,000, New pages 14,713,131, ,104,645,701 Offset Replacement 33,263,451, ,289,565,159 CF toner replacement 54,514,905, ,823,630,947

11 High-volume User Characteristics Cannot survive without ink jet High-volume, winthrough scale and automation buyer. It s never productive or low-cost enough Many are book printer/manufacturers Economies-of-scale rule Big push on automating finishing Need to run between 10-50m pages per system/ month to justify investment Concern: Poor synchronization between press and finishing productivity Ability to retain margins; on treadmill to get ever more efficient 11

12 Production Ink Jet Daily Operation Issues Year 5-10 Today Break/fix issues mostly resolved (more selfservice) less service staff/unit required Installation issues resolved Pre-flight checklist Some regional issues left 2-4 Print head life exceeding expectations 1 R&D-level service Shortage of service staff Break/fix Moving to balanced service model New page demand development Units The real investment

13 Keys to Future Success: Innovation Avoiding the race to the bottom Few will win the race to consolidate volumes at ever lower costs per page Developing new applications and teaching your customer about the benefits and opportunities Leveraging new substrates, software, finishing Paper mills are waking-up to ink jet MIS software (deep insight into real costs) and VDP Automating operations, removing labor 13

14 The Bottom Line Compression of inventory and cycle time More titles, less volume per title Declining offset printed book volumes and run lengths Opportunity for Digital Production Printing of Books Decrease in printed book volumes coupled with more self-publishing opens up large opportunity for digital book printing/manufact uring 14

15 If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough. Mario Andretti 15