The hottest flexo printing market continues to dom

The flexographic printing market continues to dominate the packaging industry (I)

for printers, although it is another challenging year, the flexographic printing market continues to dominate the packaging industry, while penetrating into new markets. Many ink companies reported moderate growth in flexo printing in 2003

Chris parrilli, vice president of North American ink Department of Sun Chemical Company, said, "most of the recent growth of flexographic printing comes from the packaging market, and flexographic printing has become the main printing process for a variety of packaging. Packaging increased slightly in 2003, and we believe that the application of flexographic printing is also increasing, because processors are optimistic that the latest technological development of flexographic printing can not only reduce costs, but also improve printing quality."

Mike impastato, vice president of North American packaging at flint ink, said: "In the past few years, the economic contraction has affected the entire ink market, and the flexographic printing market has not been spared. But on the whole, flexographic printing is more prepared to deal with the inevitable consequences of the sluggish and unstable market. In the past few years, we have seen that flexographic printing is very economical for short-term printing. Fast switching and easy revision make flexographic printing an ideal process for packers to change patterns to help packaging attract consumers."

color processing company (C gave us a detailed introduction of several universal experimental machines CI he had previously used) estimated that the business sales of packaging ink decreased by 5% to 10%, but CCI's sales increased by about 7% in 2003. Brent Davis, vice president of Deco Chem company, said, "sales were flat in most of the year, but year-end sales increased."

according to Mike impastato, packaging continues to be the main market for flexographic printing growth. Mike added: "flexographic printing has become the mainstream printing process of packaging, so the percentage growth seems not high, but in terms of total volume, packaging represents the largest growth point of flexographic printing."

in the field of packaging, CCI expects growth in several aspects, especially composite inks, special inks, wide range processes and energy curing products

Kent Shah, vice president of CCI technology, said, "in 2004, the composite ink market remained optimistic due to the continuous conversion of hard containers to flexible packaging and the application of long necked bottles. In line with the growth trend, CCI noticed that customers are increasingly demanding on the brightness, versatility and specifications of products. CCI was recently acquired by Siegwerk, making the main enterprise that simultaneously implements the market founder more adaptable to the above changes than ever."

interesting special applications include anti-counterfeiting, metallization, RFID (radio frequency identification code) and other ink technologies that promote the attractiveness of shelves, such as fluorescence, night flash and pearlescent

according to Kent Shah, several customers of CCI have invested in milky white tone, hexadecimal chroma or other wide field printing methods

ink manufacturers are optimistic about more business growth

Niklas Olsson, global brand manager of AkzoNobel ink's narrow range business department, said, "we hope that all markets and regions will improve in 2004, which will help all industries, including customers, because we are worried that the continuous downward trend may cause problems for many companies."

uv flexo printing gains growth

many ink companies reflect that UV flexo printing continues to gain market growth. According to AkzoNobel ink company, UV flexo printing is the fastest-growing printing technology

rick clendenning, President and CEO of INX international ink company, believes that uv/eb flexographic ink is on the rise. What tests can he do with his hydraulic universal testing machine? "Technological progress has helped these products gain market recognition," he said

chris parrilli said, "some application areas of UV flexo printing are growing at a higher rate than the overall packaging market. The narrow label market is a major example, with an estimated annual increase of 4%. In addition, Sun Chemical expects the UV flexo printing ink with improved liquidity and enhanced characteristics to continue to grow."