A market report by the US company Smithers compares screen and digital printing in the period 2020–2030 in the areas of POS/signage, graphic products, labels and packaging applications, as well as functional and industrial printing.
While digital printing accounted for just under 19 per cent of the total market for graphic and packaging/label printing in 2025, screen printing in the functional and industrial sectors grew by around 10 per cent between 2020 and 2025. Global demand for printed products in the graphic arts, packaging, labels, functional and industrial sectors is expected to increase slightly, following a period of similar growth over the past five years. The Smithers report highlights advances in both screen and digital printing technology, including hardware, consumables and software. It compares screen and digital printing over the period 2020–30 and examines the market trends that will affect supply and demand over a ten-year period and how the supply chains for print production and technology are responding to these trends.
Topics covered include how demand patterns have changed over time, which industrial sectors are growing or shrinking, and which trends are influencing them. Technological developments in screen printing and digital printing are also examined, along with the differences between growth areas in the screen printing and digital printing markets.
Jon Harper Smith
Jon Harper Smith has more than 15 years of experience in the printing industry through his work at Fujifilm and has extensive experience in industrial and packaging printing, with a particular focus on industrial inkjet and flexographic printing processes.
‘The high-revenue markets for screen printing in the areas of point of sale, signage, packaging and ceramic printing are facing very strong competition from digital printing processes, so screen printing has become a niche process in areas where it once dominated,’ comments Jon Harper Smith.
Smithers
From its humble beginnings as a tyre testing laboratory in Akron, Ohio, in 1925 to its current position as a global leader in the testing, inspection, certification and compliance industry, Smithers has continued to evolve. Whether as a pioneer in tyre safety testing, through diversification into industries such as pharmaceuticals, life sciences and environmental risk, or through the expansion of its global presence.
