Faced with the coronavirus crisis affecting the global economy, German manufacturer Heidelberg shares its Graphic Arts Industry Climate Report. The report compiles anonymised data on production volumes for 5,000 offset presses (for more details on the preparation of this report, read Heidelberg shares data from its customers' offset printing presses to counter the coronavirus crisis ).
On a map, this production data is compared to last year's volumes at the same time period. The scale ranges from 1 in dark red (severe impact of Covid-19 on production) to 8 in dark green (production above last year's level), with 7 or light green representing production at last year's level.
Here are the results of the impact of this crisis on commercial printing and label-packaging printing from the week of March 16 to the week of April 20, 2020.
On 16 March, in the commercial printing segment, France, with a level of 2.6, was the most affected country, followed roughly by Italy. Italy then picked up the pace again to reach a level of 4 in the week of 20 April, while France fell to 1.5, but was still ahead of Brazil, India and the southern part of Africa.
In the label-packaging segment, France is doing well, with an average increase in production reaching level 8 during the week of April 20.
Globally, Heidelberg notes that stable or even higher print output s, compared to previous years until mid-March 2020. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the shutdown due to containment have led to a significant reduction in print volume worldwide, particularly in the commercial printing sector.
During the coronavirus pandemic, print production in China has fallen by up to 80% compared to usual volumes, and then recovered as the epidemic declined. It has now returned to last year's level in both the commercial and packaging/labelling market segments.
The segment of the packaging/label is very stable over this period, mainly due to the growing demand for food and pharmaceutical packaging. However, in some countries, Heidelberg notes local supply problems, such as the shutdown of paper production in India, which are negatively impacting this segment.
