The digital printing market - Brazil

1.1 Definition and scope of study

Printing can be defined as the action of reproducing characters or images on a support.

Above all, it is important to distinguish digital printing from printing offset :

• Digital printing

Digital printing is a reproduction technique that allows documents to be printed directly from computer data. It was officially born in 1993, although the first Macintosh computers in 1984 were already facilitating and democratizing desktop publishing (DTP) - the preparation of documents for printing using a computer. Unlike offset printing, there is no intermediate step. The two best-known digital printing processes are inkjet printing (« inkjet "in English) - often for large print runs or formats, and laser printing - for small print runs.

• Printing offset  

Printing offset is to transfer the print directly onto the substrate using an intermediate surface, called a "blanket" (a soft plastic surface). In the XIX ^e century printing offset has gradually replaced lithography: it is an "industrialized" version of it. L' offset involves several preparation steps before printing, which is not done immediately on the paper. There are two offset printing processes: the first wet (conventional) and the second dry ("waterless").

L’ offset is recommended for high-volume printing. This is the major process in professional printing. Digital printing, which is less used, is faster and induces greater flexibility and the sector has a promising future with the appearance of modern technology (3D printing in particular)

In general, the printing market is facing an increasingly digital world, but despite the dematerialization of media supports, many sectors are still linked to physical printing (mainly for reading, advertising, documents) In Brazil, the situation is similar: the market is expected to experience a small but steady decline until 2023 . According to the data of IDC Brazil , 633,371 printing machines were sold in the first quarter of 2019 Of these, 51,665 were single printers and 581,706 were multifunction devices, only 1.5 per cent less than in the same period in 2018.