Welcome to the 8th drupa Global Trends Report Executive Summary. The report series is unique in tracking key economic and market developments across the print industry globally, regionally and within markets. After a two-year gap caused by the Covid pandemic, which also caused the cancellation of drupa 2020 and made drupa 2021 to be online only, we are delighted to be back.
With no opportunity to recruit fresh panel members at drupa 2020 and with the two-year gap, we were not surprised to find participation levels fall, but we still have a unique global sample of over 500 panel members, both printers and suppliers, who very kindly gave us a detailed insight into how they had prospered through and since the Covid pandemic and the other global and regional shocks that have occurred since. We sincerely thank them.
We circulated two separate surveys to printers and suppliers in April and May this year, which share many questions, but ensure that their differing interests are addressed. With a smaller overall data set, we have been careful to be transparent in the report, not drilling down into very small data sets and we spell out where we have used marginal data sets, so that readers can decide for themselves how useful the findings are. We hope and expect participation numbers to climb again next year, as we start the build up towards drupa 2024.
The findings show that confidence levels are recovering across the globe as economic momentum builds post Covid, but that major socio-economic challenges lie ahead for all. As always, those that look ahead and invest accordingly will thrive best, and our panel’s forecast and their brief comments given in the survey show the industry is up for the challenge.
Messe Düsseldorf, in its role as drupa organiser, must thank Printfuture (UK) and Wissler & Partner (Switzerland) for conducting and authoring this report series. We are confident you will find the resulting report insightful. We would be pleased to receive any feedback, so send us an email to drupa-expert-panel@drupa.de.
The drupa team September 2022
