This TrendWatch Graphic Arts report takes a detailed look at the growth and adoption of digital color printing.

Over the years, TrendWatch GA has tracked the digital printing marketplace and investment in digital presses, and until recently, the changes in the market were primarily incremental. Looking back only as far as 2002, it's amazing how much the market has changed. In this report, we sum up the changes, provide an overarching analysis of the current digital printing marketplace, and unveil the most recent and comprehensive data from our surveys.

TrendWatch Graphic Arts today released a detailed Special Report on the digital color printing marketplace. "Digital Printing 2005: It's Mainstream, Baby!" looks at the growth and adoption of digital color printing. It analyzes the data and trends in both the graphic arts and creatives market spaces, including primary applications such as short-run, on-demand printing, variable data printing, and Web-to-print.
This is a comprehensive look at this market space, starting with a listing of the major players and their digital press wares, including color, black-and-white, and highlight color presses, both commercial and continuous feed. It offers an analysis of competitive differentiators between manufacturers and where each press model or line fits into the larger marketplace. Press models from Xerox, Xeikon, HP, IBM, Kodak, Oce, and Nipson are included.

For printers looking to invest in a digital color press, this valuable 27-page analysis, along with a short introduction, is also broken out as a separate report, "Digital Printing 2005: The Major Players and Their Wares," available for $25.

The full report, "Digital Printing 2005: It's Mainstream, Baby!", then looks at the overall market for digital color presses, including a historical analysis of TrendWatch GA data on planned investment in digital presses, as well as current changes in printers' volumes of digital print. A separate section shifts to the perspective of creatives, including data on how their volumes of digital print are changing, including their use of variable data and a discussion on the current status of "print quality" in the eyes of creatives.

The report also provides top-line data and analysis from the Variable Data Printing 2005 and Web-to-Print 2005 Special Reports. It also devotes a section to the short-run, on-demand environment and its current level of maturity. There are some surprises here, including the breakout role of color copiers.

Highlights
15% of graphic arts firms plan to purchase a digital color press in the next 12 months.
39% of digital printers say their digital printing volumes are increasing "a little" or "a lot".
26% of digital printers see "short-run color with color copiers" - note: copiers, not digital presses - as a top sales opportunity.
42% of creatives say their use of digital color printing is increasing "a little" or "a lot".
22% of catalog publishers say that "variable data printing projects" are a top sales opportunity for their businesses.

Researcher's Comment
Notes Heidi Tolliver-Nigro, TrendWatch GA analyst and author of the report, "We've been waiting for more than a decade, but the data are now confirming what we are seeing anecdotally: digital color printing has finally become an accepted and mainstream part of the commercial printing marketplace. There are still limitations, and some education still needs to be done, but as an industry, we've finally turned the corner."

Price is $995 for 129 pages of text and graphics. Customers can also buy the 27-page mini-report, "Digital Printing 2005: The Major Players and Their Wares" for $25. http://www.trendwatchgraphicarts.com/special.html