Chinese ink industry market size, competition pattern and development trend

Chinese ink industry localization capacity to be further improved

China's ink industry has achieved rapid development through the introduction, digestion, absorption and independent research and development of technology and equipment. Since 2015, driven by national environmental protection policies, the pace of the elimination of backward production capacity in China's ink industry has accelerated, and the benefits of supply-side reform have been highlighted. In 2019, the sales revenue of enterprises in China's ink industry has reached a new high of 43.371 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that the domestic supply of Chinese ink industry is insufficient, long-term trade deficit, localization capacity to be further improved.

1, ink industry chain panorama

Ink is a kind of pigment particles evenly dispersed in the connecting material and has a certain viscosity of the fluid substance. As a special material for reproduction or reproduction on the substrate surface by means of printing, ink and printing are interdependent and inseparable, and are widely used in publication printing, packaging printing and commercial printing. In recent years, it has also been used in the fields of electronic optical disc and architectural decoration materials, which belong to the technology-intensive fine chemical products.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the upstream of the ink industry is the raw material market, the downstream is the product demand market. The influence of upstream raw materials on the industry is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is the stability of the output scale affects the stability of the supply of raw materials in the ink industry; Second, the price of raw materials affects the production cost of the ink industry.

From the upstream raw materials, the raw materials of ink can be roughly divided into resin, solvent, pigment, additives four categories. Pigment is a very fine particle of colored matter, determine the color of ink, coloring force, chroma, and acid, alkali, light resistance, water resistance and other properties, accounting for about 10%-20% of the composition of ink.

Resin connecting material is a fluid component of ink, mainly composed of various resins and solvents. As a pigment carrier, the resin binder can adjust the viscosity, fluidity, dryness and transfer performance of the ink, and make the ink on the substrate surface dry, solid and film. Resin bonding material is an important component of ink, directly determines the quality of ink, accounting for about 70%-80% of the composition of ink.

Auxiliaries are used to improve the performance of ink and adjust the printability of ink in the process of ink manufacturing and printing. Auxiliaries account for about 10% of the composition of ink.

The middle reaches of the industrial chain for the ink manufacturing industry, there are many types of ink, different types of ink composition is different, performance is also different. According to the printing format, substrate material, solvent and drying method, ink can be mainly divided into the following categories:

From the perspective of the downstream product market, ink is mainly used in the printing industry, and the development of the ink industry is closely related to the development of the printing industry. In recent years, our printing industry is facing a series of unfavorable factors, which need to seek a new way of transformation to break out, which is affected by the slowdown of economic growth, the increase of enterprise production cost, and the acceleration of the digital and networking process. In this context, innovation and upgrading, centralized integration will become the main development trend of the printing industry in the next few years, and the reduction of the total volume of printing may also become a fact.

It is worth noting that the improvement of environmental protection requirements in recent years has made green printing an important theme in the development of the industry. It requires more environmental protection of printing technology, continuous environmental protection and saving of packaging consumables, easy recycling and natural degradation of printed materials after waste, so as to achieve pollution-free and low-pollution packaging. Emerging industries such as e-commerce, express logistics, electronic communications and other industries have become the growth points of the national economy. Driven by this, packaging printing in specific fields has shown a momentum of rapid development.

2, China's ink production and marketing connection better market scale continues to climb

Under the rapid development of printing industry, Chinese ink industry has developed rapidly, and the country has become the second largest printing ink producer in the world. According to the data released by China Ink Association, China's ink output reached 794,000 tons in 2019, with a year-on-year growth of 3.4%. In 2020, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the growth rate of China's ink output declined. Forward-looking estimates that the output of China's ink industry in 2020 will be about 800,000 tons, with a year-on-year growth of 0.8%.

From the perspective of production and sales rate, the production and sales of Chinese ink industry are well connected. Since 2012, the production and sales rate of Chinese ink industry is more than 99%, and in 2019, the production and sales rate of ink industry reached 110.02%, which declined compared with 2018.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in recent years, the sales revenue of Chinese ink industry has increased year by year, and the market scale has been expanding. In 2019, Chinese ink industry enterprises achieved sales revenue of 43.371 billion yuan, an increase of 3.21% year on year. According to the estimation of the sales revenue of enterprises in the ink industry in 2020 based on the market development status, it is estimated that the sales revenue of enterprises in the ink industry in 2020 is about 43.6 billion yuan.

3, environmental protection and high pressure to promote the rise of UV ink market

In order to meet the new requirements of economic development, new situation, in recent years, The State Council and other issued a series of policies and norms, to guide the healthy and orderly development of the ink industry, in order to eliminate a number of serious pollution ink production enterprises, accelerate the pace of environmental protection construction, for the economic construction service, promote better and faster economic development.

In the ink industry pollution control requirements can continue to improve the background, many small and medium-sized enterprises by the end of the treatment equipment investment cost pressure is also actively seeking the source of governance, so take solvo-free ink is the fundamental solution to the ink industry VOCs emissions, specific alternatives mainly include: UV, EB, UV-LED and so on.

UV ink is widely used in the printing industry by virtue of its fast curing speed, no solvent, no spraying powder and other advantages. According to the incomplete statistics of China Radiation Curing Association, the output of UV ink in 2012 was 30,935 tons, and in 2018 the output of UV ink reached 67,616 tons, with an average annual compound growth rate of 13.92% from 2012 to 2018. In 2019, the output of UV ink reached a new high, with an annual output of 77,420 tons. With a year-on-year growth of 14.5%, it is estimated that our UV ink production in 2020 will be about 83,600 tons.

UV ink from the purpose can be divided into two categories: UV printing ink and UV printed circuit board ink. Among them, UV printing ink used in the printing industry is widely used in various fields of lithography (offset printing), relief printing (including flexographic printing), gravure printing, screen printing and inkjet printing; And UV printed circuit board ink is mainly used in the electronic industry printed circuit board (PCB).

With the global electronic information industry from developed countries to emerging economies and emerging countries, Asia, especially China, has gradually become the world's most important electronic information product production base. With the migration of electronic information industry chain, PCB industry, as its basic industry, is also concentrated in mainland China, Southeast Asia and other Asian regions.

Since 2006, China has surpassed Japan to become the world's largest PCB producer, and its output and output value of PCB both rank first in the world. According to the data released by Prismark, the output value of PCB in China reached 32.9 billion yuan in 2019, and the output value of PCB increased to about 34 billion yuan in 2020, among which PCB ink accounted for about 3% of the output value of PCB on average. According to the estimation, the output value of PCB ink industry in 2020 exceeded 1 billion yuan.

4, China's ink import and export scale continues to decline in the long-term trade deficit

In recent years, the total import and export volume of China's ink industry has continued. In 2020, the total import and export volume of the ink industry was 2.673 billion yuan, down 0.98% year-on-year, among which the import amount was 2.04 billion yuan, up 3.6% year-on-year, and the total export amount was 633 million yuan, down 13.4% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that China's ink industry has been in a state of trade deficit for a long time. In 2019, the trade deficit of China's ink industry was 1.237 billion yuan, which is slightly larger than that of 2018. In 2020, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the demand of overseas ink markets declined, and the export amount of Chinese ink decreased significantly, and the trade deficit further expanded. In 2020, China's ink industry trade deficit was 1.407 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.72%.

5, China's ink market is relatively scattered enterprises fierce competition

Chinese ink industry was initially mainly small-scale enterprises, with the need of development, ink enterprises continue to improve its technical level, enhance the core competitiveness, gradually grow, generally speaking, the ink industry market is relatively dispersed. In recent years, driven by the national environmental protection policies and the elimination of outdated production capacity, many ink enterprises with low production capacity and high pollution have been eliminated from the market. Enterprises with strong technology and production strength, such as Shanghai Zijiang Enterprise Group Co., LTD., Henan Xinkenai Industrial Co., LTD., have seized the market by expanding production and improving technical level. Market concentration in the industry has increased.

At present, Chinese ink industry has a certain influence of the brand is as follows:

Note: The brand rank is obtained by CN10/CNPP brand data research department through data collection, and based on big data statistics and artificial analysis and research according to the changes of market and parameter conditions. The non-bidding ranking is for reference only!

6, forward-looking view: China's ink industry towards faster, wider, safer direction of development

The development of Chinese ink industry in the future, in addition to increasing products, will pay more attention to the adjustment of product structure, mainly to improve the concentration of production, increase research and development efforts, improve the content of science and technology and product quality and product stability, so that it better adapt to today's multi-color, high-speed, fast drying, no pollution, low consumption of modern printing industry needs. In general, the development trend of Chinese ink industry is as follows: