An estimated total of around 384m/m2 of fabric were printed digitally via dye sublimation in the year to Q1 2016 according to the newly published ‘The Future of Dye-Sublimation Printing to 2021’ from Smithers Pira. The report says this is set to rise to 892m/m2 by 2021.
The four major end-use segments are garments; household (carpets, wall coverings and upholstery); technical and visual communications (displays and signage); and technical textiles. This last category includes automotive (seats, seat-belts, seat head lining, panels, sound absorption), bags, medical and scientific textiles, sails, tents, parasols/umbrellas, accessories and sports equipment.
The garments segment is the largest end-use sector, with 75% of the market share by value in 2016. The other segments each take 5-10% of the market.
“What is driving the market, in very basic terms, is the increasing demand for rapid customisation to create beautiful, unique clothing or household products,” said Dr J D Hayward, author of the report.
“This is more and more made possible by digital printing technology. In turn, printers must turn around the production and delivery of dye sublimation products ever more quickly to meet this demand.”
Applications of digital dye sublimation textile printing include, in order of run length: unique one-offs, sampling, micro-runs, short production runs and increasingly long bulk production runs in the multiple thousands of linear metres. This last is the new battleground with conventional analogue textile print, which dye sublimation is looking to disrupt with a new generation of high-productivity presses.
Dye sublimation specific machine annual revenues amount to a total of €279 million ($304 million) to Q1 2016. Dye sublimation inks revenues amount to a total of around €259 million to end Q1 2016.
Globally, digital textile printing output grew at more than 45% annually between 2004 and 2009 from a low base. From 2009, growth slowed somewhat, in part due to the fact that the near-exponential growth rates of early years could not be sustained as the market became more mature, but also because of the global economic slowdown.
Dye sublimation digital printing was nascent in the period 2004-9. The sublimation dye market attracted attention as it was clearly growing rapidly between 2011 and 2015, in some countries at over 50% per year from a low base. The market participants collectively now predict a lower rate of growth going ahead to 2021, but at 18.4% CAGR, dye sublimation continues to be an appealing fast-growing market that will more than double in terms of volume printed and value over the study period.
In terms of regional markets, Asia (including Turkey) is having, and will continue to have, the strongest growth. Conversely, the highest per unit price will continue to be seen in North America and Western Europe.