This Month's Spectrum Summary:

(The following is an excerpt from the April 2005 issue of Spectrum, a proprietary monthly briefing published exclusively for the clients of I.T. Strategies, Inc. © 2005)

Wide Format Market Numbers Portend an Industry Feast;
But Will It Really Happen?

This month I.T. Strategies consultants sit down with us to discuss the significance of their just completed wide format (WF) market forecast. Compared with the overall digital printer market, wide format is quite small, under 1% in terms of unit sales. Also, the market numbers don't show very exciting growth. What is significant, however, is new technology development that is expected to drive a new wave of growth.

The three main WF segments tracked are aqueous, solvent, and flatbed. The aqueous market is relatively mature with CAGR over the next five years projected at only 1% in terms of vendor revenue. Much stronger growth is predicted for the eco-solvents. But the most interesting developments are in flatbed.

Flatbeds generally use UV-curable chemistry. They are a doorway to new generations of fixed array, high speed machines for a wide variety of new, high volume industrial and perhaps document markets. They are by far the fastest growth segment at 27% CAGR projected over the next five years. Pricing now ranges from over $400,000 down to below $100,000. The high end machines tend to be used by traditional screen printers, with the lower end machines finding acceptance by digital print shops with roll-to-roll machines. Recently flatbed/roll-to-roll combination machines have been introduced.

Looking at the vendors, competition has been increasing, especially due to new, Far East players. Two significant developments among the established vendors is the recently announced acquisition of VUTEk by EFI and HP's intended (but not completed) acquisition of Scitex Vision. This may be a signal that HP sees piezo technology in its future.

In aqueous, an area of growth is in lower-end machines increasingly being used by photographers documented in a recent I.T. Strategies survey yielding over 1,400 responses.

Looking ahead, a major vendor such as HP looking at piezo and pouring more of its resources into wide format could accelerate growth. Inks are the key. Here patents are not seen as barriers to growth. There are currently several suppliers of UV-curable inkjet inks, and it is believed it would not be difficult for others to develop them. Mark sees the main barrier that may stand in the way of the envisioned wave of growth into industrial applications is lack of vision by the vendors, and by miscommunication between users and vendors.