At the 11th Beijing International Printing Information Exchange Conference in 2008, three of eighteen speakers focused on a single technology: inkjet printing. Yang Bin, vice president of Beijing Founder Electronics, made an assertion that captured the moment: “We used to see inkjet as a supplement to conventional printing. It is now clear that digital printing — led by inkjet — will challenge traditional methods and become a mainstream format in its own right.” A PIRA report showed that most print technologies worldwide faced projected negative growth — except digital, which was accelerating.
Why Inkjet Wins Against Other Digital Technologies
In the digital printing domain, two core technologies compete: electrophotographic (laser) imaging and inkjet imaging. The comparison, as laid out by Yang Bin, is stark:
| Dimension | Inkjet | Electrophotographic (Laser) |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | 2,000 A4 pages/minute (fully variable) | ~100 A4 pages/minute (speed bottleneck) |
| Format width | Unlimited (heads stitched in arrays) | A3+ maximum; costs spiral beyond |
| Color stations | Flexible — 4, 6, or 7 colors via head arrays | Constrained |
| Substrate range | Non-contact; paper, film, wood, textured surfaces | Contact-based; mostly paper only |
| Operating cost | Low ink cost | High toner cost |
| Hybrid capability | Mountable on conventional presses; inline integration | No inline integration with conventional |
Within inkjet itself, drop-on-demand (DOD) technology is clearly superior to continuous inkjet (CIJ) for most applications. Yang Xiaoyong, customer manager at Xaar, summarized digital printing’s four core advantages: a 100% continuous workflow from file to print, native variable data capability, zero plates or screens to make or clean, and dramatically shorter turnaround cycles.
Applications: Where Inkjet Was Winning by 2008
PIRA’s global inkjet market forecast divided applications into two domains:
Print domain — large-format graphics, commercial printing, publishing, bills and statements, direct mail, labels, and packaging. Industrial domain — food, pharmaceutical, electronics, and mechanical manufacturing marking and coding.
Large-format graphics and bill/direct mail had already reached commercial maturity. Digital labels were a natural fit: inkjet’s substrate independence meant it could print on pressure-sensitive labels, roll-fed labels, flexible packaging, tinplate for cans and decorative containers, aluminum beverage cans, aerosol packaging, plastic caps, plastic containers, security documents, handbags, blister packs, and corrugated — essentially anything. Commercial and book printing were still in prototype stage, but the development potential was enormous.
Drupa 2008 was nicknamed “the Inkjet Drupa.” The show floor revealed the technology’s trajectory across segments:
- Bills and direct mail: Kodak VL2000, Screen Jet520, Océ JetStream 2200, Miyakoshi MJP20V, Agfa Dotrix
- Digital labels: Screen, Mimaki, FFEI & Nilpeter, EFI Jetrion, Epson, Stork, Konica Minolta, and Founder Electronics
- Commercial and publishing: Kodak Stream, HP Inkjet Web Press, Fujifilm JetPress 720, Screen Truepress JetSX
Market Forecast: 25% Digital Share by 2015
The most striking data came from PIRA’s Global Print Market Forecast. In the year 2000, dry and liquid toner (electrophotographic) printing held 99% of the digital printing market; inkjet held just 1%. By 2015, toner was projected to fall to 75% while inkjet would rise to 25% — a complete inversion of the technology mix within digital printing.
Yang Xiaoyong cited European printing consultancy projections that by 2012, 20–50% of most packaging categories would use digital printing, with drop-on-demand inkjet as the dominant process. Yang Bin went further: some manufacturers had announced that full-color inkjet would soon reach a unit cost of 1 U.S. cent per A4 page — shifting the cost crossover point with offset to approximately 10,000 impressions. At that threshold, over 75% of all print jobs worldwide would be economically better suited to inkjet than offset.
The industry consensus was crystallizing: inkjet was no longer offset’s supplement. It was positioning itself as the fifth mainstream printing process — joining offset lithography, gravure, flexography, and screen printing. And beyond the traditional print domain, inkjet’s industrial applications — coding, marking, direct-to-shape decoration — were only beginning to unfold.
References
- Wikipedia: Inkjet Printing: Foundational overview of inkjet technology including continuous vs drop-on-demand architectures, printhead design, and industrial applications.
- Wikipedia: Digital Printing: Comparison of digital technologies including electrophotographic and inkjet, market share trends, and industry adoption.
- Wikipedia: Drop-on-Demand: Technical detail on DOD inkjet — thermal and piezoelectric actuation — and its advantages over continuous inkjet for commercial print.
- Wikipedia: Variable Data Printing: How inkjet’s native variable data capability differentiates it from plate-based processes in personalized and versioned printing.
- Wikipedia: Xaar: History and technology of Xaar piezoelectric printheads, one of the key inkjet platforms discussed at the 2008 Beijing conference.