The following are 3 predictions of the thermal paper market from 2019 to 2024 based on my 10 years of experience in thermal paper industry. It will help you paint an accurate picture of the future thermal paper market, and it will also help you develop business strategies and organize sales by understanding the trends and identifying the best opportunities.
1. Thermal Paper Market Will Shrink
The concept of paperless, electronic receipts – “e-receipts” – becomes more feasible as increasingly massive amounts of retail merchandising and business transactions take place online, as well as the growing use of electronic handheld devices and bank cards for everyday purchases in brick-and-mortar establishments. It is inevitable that e-receipts will gradually take the place of thermal paper receipts as the standard document for verifying all kinds of transactions.
For the time being, however, the overwhelming majority of people on both sides of the checkout counter prefer paper receipts. There is simply no substitute for something concrete that you can hold in your hand. Even the e-receipts currently in use invariably have a “print this receipt” button somewhere. A paper receipt can be signed, copied, put in a file, taken to court, used for refunds, or any other function where unequivocal proof of contract is desired.
According to recent research from Grand View Research, Inc., thermal paper market size will reach $4.77 billion by 2022. Widespread conversion to e-receipts is clearly inevitable, but it will happen slowly, not overnight. Not only do e-receipts have to meet these legal and logistical challenges, but they must be made universally acceptable and technically available. For this reason, regardless of any glowing predictions, e-receipts are still in the fetal stage in their evolution as a business instrument.
2. Printed Paper Market Share Will Increase
With the advent of near-universal internet access and portable electronic devices, advertising has become ubiquitous. An increasingly popular venue for reaching customers with advertising messages is by printing on a thermal paper receipt. It is also extremely cost-effective. A single, one-time magazine or television ad can run tens of thousands of dollars, whereas the ad printed on the back of a receipt costs only a few dollars more than a plain unprinted batch, and reaches every single customer of the business, often repeatedly.
Printed receipts also accommodate a high degree of customization, allowing the use of company logos, forms, attractive font designs, or virtually anything that can be generated as a graphic image.
Custom printed paper receipts can have an impressive range of purposes: sale announcements, promotions (30% off of your next purchase!), coupons, contests, warranty documentation, rebates, forms, and so on.
3. Competitiveness in the International Market Will Gradually Increase
At present, in the foreign industrial developed countries, the thermal paper industry is generally at a more advanced level, the world’s large enterprises are mainly concentrated in the Japan, USA, Europe, etc. Meanwhile, foreign companies have more mature equipment, strong R & D capability, the technical level is in a leading position. But foreign companies manufacturing cost is relatively high, compared with china’s companies, the manufacturing cost is a competitive disadvantage, as the Chinese thermal paper production enterprise technology continues to improve, their share in the international market is increasing, competitiveness in the international market gradually increase.
Chinese thermal paper industry has developed into a national industry with certain research and production capacity, the industry product mix has gradually improved, currently, China has become international thermal paper large consumption country, but the production technology is relatively laggard, currently can only produce some low-end product, although after 2012 the new production lines is increasing, the technology is still relying on import.
Currently, the global major manufacturers are: Oji, Koehler, Appvion, their production market share is over 50%. Although many new projects are put into production in recent years, in the short future, the competition pattern will not change. The key thermal paper manufacturers are:
- Oji
- Koehler
- Appvion
- Mitsubishi Paper
- Ricoh
- Hansol
- Jujo Thermal Paper
- ChenMing
- Guanhao
If you have any great idea concerning thermal paper market prediction, freely leave your comment here, we would be glad if we can discuss in detail.
