This device class was one of the very few hardware segments with increasing sales during the recession, even in the crisis year of 2009. Approximately 200 high-speed continuous-feed process colour print engines were placed around the world that year. And the first three-quarters of 2010 should have added a similar amount of engines.

The term ‘engine’ should not be confused with full production lines as one installation usually takes two engines to allow duplex printing. Suppliers prefer to quote engines sold when making press releases on the number of installations – as this number obviously sounds more impressive.

That said, it has never been entirely clear who was most likely to buy these devices. The quality and running cost capabilities of high-speed continuous-feed process colour printers would seemingly make them attractive to the transaction and direct mail markets, but with improvements in quality and paper latitude, devices are moving into publication environments and are finally reaching out to all kinds of offset print – at least that is the theory.

Installation data
To gain a bit more insight, InfoTrends collected press releases of printer installations. More than 50 announcements have been made since 2004, and most of these occurred within the past two years as more and more vendors entered the market.

Based on this data, the transaction environments are clearly leading the way in terms of installations. Transactional printers account for about one-third of the installations made public. Given that many data centre printing sites prefer a low public profile, the real figure is probably higher. Until recently, the digital printing handled in these environments was monochrome or perhaps spot colour. The fact that digitally printed process colour is now being adopted means a couple of things – not only are offset colour pages shifting to digital, but monochrome digital pages are moving to colour digital devices. This is a significant market change that impacts offset and monochrome digital print volumes at the same time.

The second largest area of applications is book printing, and here we have seen several high-profile installations recently. It is no surprise to see more digital print in book printing, as runs get shorter, obsolescence is getting harder to justify and publishers’ backlists are growing. However, it seems that only the advent of e-readers forced book publishers to accept limitations in quality, formats and paper on inkjet printers and to redesign their business processes for short-run on-demand printing.

The next largest application area is direct mail with 15% of all announcements. However, making the distinction between direct mail and transaction sites will become more and more difficult as advertising is added to billing applications.
Newspaper sites account for just over 5% of installations, testifying that there is still some catch-up potential. It also illustrates the fact that newspaper publishers seemingly lack the courageous spirit of their book publishing peers.
Finally, about one-quarter of all sites do not have a dominant application. This testifies that print lines are getting more flexible too.

Sites that are handling transactional work did and are still leading the high-speed inkjet technology adoption and some other applications are starting to catch up. InfoTrends expects the appeal of these devices to expand as they gain the ability to print on affordable coated papers. This will open the door for more applications, such as promotional materials, catalogues and magazines. As that occurs, even more pages will shift to this exciting class of devices.

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30-SECOND BRIEFING ON… HIGH-SPEED INKJET WEB PRINTERS
• High-speed inkjet printers attract a lot of limelight in the press, not only because they represent a technical feat, but primarily as installation numbers keep on growing
• The biggest application for high-speed colour inkjet printers is transaction print, where the colour printer is replacing offset preprint and monochrome personalisation. Increasingly advertising, informational and educational content is added to the statements
• Digital colour book printing is the second most-frequently used application as book publishers start to exploit the opportunity of short-run, on-demand books
• The distinction between direct mail and transaction sites will start to blur as transaction sites add advertising elements on their bills and start to use the high speed presses for marketing materials as well
• A quarter of all sites do not have a specialism, demonstrating the flexibility reached with some of the colour inkjet lines already
• Newspaper applications still lag behind, as publishers still struggle with changing their business model to exploit the opportunities of digital print