IDC’s new Worldwide Quarterly Industrial Printer Tracker shows that the Covid-19 crisis significantly impacted industrial printer shipments worldwide in the second quarter of 2020. The industrial printer market, comprised of the large format, packaging and label, direct-to shape, direct-to-garment, and industrial textile printer segments, saw worldwide shipments decline 46.8% year over year in the second quarter.
“With much of the world still in shutdown or just starting to come out of shutdown at the end of the second quarter, no segment or region was spared,” said Tim Greene, research director, Hardcopy Peripherals at IDC. “While our research indicates many global manufacturers are rethinking supply chains to meet resilience and sustainability goals, those are longer-term initiatives. Shipments and hardware revenue across the large format and industrial printer market have declined due to near-term challenges such as government shutdowns and capital budget cuts.”
Regional highlights
The Asia Pacific region showed the start of a recovery in the second quarter. There was some growth in shipments compared to the first quarter in the direct-to-shape, industrial textile, large format, and label and packaging segments.
However, in North America, shipments declined by over 20% in Q2, while shipments in Europe decreased by almost 42% compared to the first quarter.
Direct-to-garment printer shipments decline 20% in Q2
According to IDC, shipments in the direct-to-garment segment declined just over 20% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. In comparison, shipments in the direct-to-shape segment declined by over 26% in the second compared to the first quarter.
Industrial textile printer shipments contracted just 7% compared to the first quarter, with growth in the Asia Pacific region offsetting declines in other regions. Label and packaging unit shipments declined by 12.5% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter.
Large format printer shipments declined almost 25% worldwide in the second quarter compared to first.
Market expected to stabilize in H2
Looking ahead, IDC expects both units and shipment value will stabilize in the second half of 2020 as the various geographic regions go through their phases of recovery. The year 2021 is still expected to be a recovery year as IDC anticipates economic recovery and supply chain digitization to drive investments in more flexible manufacturing technologies such as industrial printing solutions.
