Print Media Industry Climate.

Learn about current printing market trends since the COVID⁠-⁠19 pandemic started.

What is the Print Media Industry Climate report?

Heidelberg has been producing connected machines for many years. The capabilities of these machines enable our customers to remotely monitor the status of their equipment, follow up on processes and output, and improve the overall performance of their print shops. The wealth of machines connected, together with access to other industry data also allows Heidelberg to review the climate of the Print Media Industry at any given point in time.

The Print Media Industry Climate report was developed in April 2020 at the request of many of our customers, in an effort to help them better understand which market segments and countries are most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We offer two reports: one related to commercial printing, the other related to packaging printing. Both reports can be broken down by country and use a color coding for data visualization.

Insights in the Print Media Industry Climate report are created using multiple sources:

The Heidelberg Cloud: a representative set of connected sheetfed offset machines worldwide provides base market information about production per country and segment worldwide. In addition, Heidelberg experts correlate these data with Heidelberg Cloud information about other product lines such as Computer-to-Plate devices and folding machines to consider the complete value chain of print shops.
COVID-19 data published by World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Macroeconomic data published by IHS Markit.
Survey results published by various industry associations.

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Week 37: Current expert statement:

The recovery in commercial printing exceeds the production level in packaging & label printing in many Asian countries.
The printing industry in South America continues to be strongly affected by the Corona pandemic.
In parallel to the infection rates, we see a differentiated picture in Europe - the Mediterranean countries are proving to be resilient in this respect.

Frequently asked questions:

Why was this report created?

The Print Media Industry Climate report was created at the request of customers with the objective of supporting them during the Coronavirus crisis. At a time of great uncertainty among all market participants in the printing industry, we believe it is important to understand which market segments and countries are affected and how.

The estimates of our Heidelberg team of experts should give you a timely, representative picture of the current state of the print media industry and indicate where priorities and efforts are needed to support everyone in our industry.

What does this report show me?

Based on a weekly assessment by a team of experts from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, this report estimates the current impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the largest segments of the print media industry - commercial printing and packaging/label printing. The color code assesses the estimated current production of printers compared to the previous year on a scale of 1 (serious impact of COVID-19 on production with more than 60% reduction) to 8 (production 10% or more above last year's level), with 7 (production at last year's level) at the center of the color scale. Using the scroll bar you can see the climate changes in the print media industry by week, starting with the week of 16 March 2020.

What are the data sources?

The assessment of the Heidelberg panel of experts is based on the following sources:

Data on the COVID-19 pandemic published online by the Robert Koch Institute in its COVID-19 Dashboard
Macroeconomic data published by IHS Markit
Various survey results published by industry associations
Heidelberg Cloud - A representative set of ~5,000 SFO machines worldwide provides basic market information on production per country and segment worldwide. In addition, Heidelberg experts correlate this data with information from the Heidelberg Cloud on other product lines such as CtP devices and folding machines in order to view the entire value chain of print shops.

These sources enable the Heidelberg team of experts to assess the situation of the print media industry during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Who is the Heidelberg expert team?

The team consists of Heidelberg experts from the Heidelberg Digital Unit with worldwide responsibility for sales, market intelligence, partner management, and customer success management.

Will other companies or suppliers be involved?

As a leading partner of the print media industry, Heidelberg has quickly taken the first step to help in the corona crisis. We are open to the inclusion of data and expert reviews from all other industry stakeholders. We also speak with our contacts at printer associations around the world.

Why am I getting the updated dashboard on Friday?

The Heidelberg Cloud, as one of the data sources, depends on the production data of the connected machines. Data is only transferred when the machine is switched on and connected. Especially in times of crisis, some customers may switch off machines or perform maintenance work. For this reason, we collect data for a few more days in the new week before the team of experts takes a look at it. We try to reduce the distance to machines with delayed data transmission by a statistical approach called "nowcasting": See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowcasting_(economics)

Why do I not get expert feedback for some smaller countries?

Heidelberg is strictly committed to data protection and the accuracy of the information provided. We only provide information to countries where we have a statistically sufficient installed base connected to the Heidelberg Cloud and a privacy policy with Heidelberg. Therefore we cannot provide data for dealer markets and some smaller countries.

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Our commitment to privacy:

These reports have been created using anonymized data only.
No identifiable information, such as print shop name, print shop location or print shop employee data, will be made available in these reports at any point in time.
Visit our Privacy Policy to learn more about how we keep our customers' data private, safe and secure.