In a wide-ranging report from Smithers Pira, The Future of Digital Textile Printing to 2021, the print market researcher forecasted annual average growth for the next five years to be 12.3%, which will see the market more than double, from sales of €1.2bn (£1bn) to €2.4bn.

Smithers’ analysis predicts volumes of fabric being printed with inkjet equipment will increase at an even faster rate than the growth of the market. Currently, 870m sqm of fabric is printed annually and this could rise to 1.95 billion sqm by 2021. 

Commissioning editor John Nelson said: “Digital textile printing is growing because of the same advantages inkjet offers in other applications – reduced setup times, faster order response and the ability to produce small, customised runs.

“The latter is especially important in signage and fashion, where the industry is shifting towards multiple mini-seasons within one traditional season; this means newer designs and proofing and multiple short runs.”

Nelson said that more inkjet companies are now seeing opportunities in entering the digital textile industry by purchasing specialist direct-to-textile machinery and ink manufacturers. 

This is taking place especially regularly in Italy, where a local technology hub has been established in Como, near the fashion capital of Milan.

Mimaki recently completed its purchase of La Meccanica, Epson acquired Robustelli last June and in 2015, EFI purchased Reggiani Macchine and Matan.

Signage is the largest of the four ‘segments’ addressed in the report but Nelson believes all four – clothing, household, technical, and signage –  will see double-digit annual growth over the next five years, with the fastest being in clothing and the slowest being in technical.

Mtex Technologies, the UK arm of Portuguese-headquartered Mtex Solutions, debuted two new direct-to-textile printers at its open house in Leicestershire last year.

Managing director Stewart Bell said: “I’m always sceptical when I see these reports but to be fair our internal research has definitely seen the growth of digital inkjet and what it brings to the market.

“The innovation within digital and what it brings to the textile market as a whole is staggering. We’re now seeing demand from companies that weren’t printing textiles before starting to print their own. They used to have textiles pre-printed, mainly in Asia, but now we have seen a definite increase across Europe for digital textile solutions, not only just printing but pre- and post-print treatment as well.”

Milton Keynes-based DTGUK.com became the first UK company to install a Kornit Digital Storm Hexa direct-to-garment (DTG) digital printing system last July.

“We have seen quite a bit of growth and this does seem to be the way the market is growing. A lot of customers are getting pickier and want a little bit more,” said its managing director Phil Walker.

“We’ve only had the printers ourselves for two and a half years but in that time we have seen exponential growth, especially at peak times of the year, it has opened up a whole new market if you like.”