Indian Printer and Publisher, together with its research organization IppStar www.ippstar.org, conducted a mini-survey of the recovery of the Indian print news media industry of a dozen news groups over the past five financial years in February 2023. The results published in our March 2023 issue can be seen here (Five-year financial results).
March 2023 Indian Printer and Publisher
In our current and ongoing work, we have expanded this to 36 newspaper groups and to the past 9 years, including the financial results of FY 2021-22 for 31 groups and up to FY 2022-23 for the five publicly listed groups that have recently become available.
Our analysis will be published in the September issue of Indian Printer and Publisher and distributed at the forthcoming Wan-Ifra India Conference in Kochi.
To add value to our analysis, we would like your organization to answer the following brief questions that relate primarily to newspaper production. Here is the link to the survey which will automatically reach us https://forms.gle/hRmvPT6eDuHQtQy36
If you can complete this questionnaire, we would be grateful. Your information will not individually be made public but it will form part of our analysis and your organization will only be referred to as part of a group or trend.
In case you would like to talk to us, please let us set up a phone conversation.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
