Driven by the rapid development of application fields, the ink industry has gradually entered a period of steady transformation.

Ink is a viscous colloidal fluid used for printing composed of binders, colorants and additives. According to different application scenarios, inks can be divided into printing inks and electronic inks; according to different printing methods, they can be divided into gravure inks, offset inks, flexo inks, screen printing inks and special inks. Electronic inks are divided into PCB inks and special functional inks. Ink is a special material that can be reproduced on the surface of a substrate through printing. It is closely related to the printing industry and is mainly used in publication printing, packaging printing, commercial printing and other fields.

The upstream of the ink industry chain is suppliers of raw materials and additives such as rosin, crude oil, synthetic resins, pigments, and additives; the midstream is Hanghua Ink, New Oriental New Materials, Tiannv Chemical, DIC, Hanghua Co., Ltd., Ye’s Chemical, Toyo Ink, Tianlong Group and other ink manufacturers; downstream applications include food, beverages, publishing, electronics, packaging, building decoration and other applications.

Among them, printing and packaging are the main application markets of printing ink. In recent years, with the continuous upgrading of domestic printing technology and the continuous expansion of printing ink application fields, the scale of the printing ink market has continued to expand. At the same time, against the background of the rapid development of the domestic consumer electronics industry, the market demand for electronic inks continues to increase. In 2021, the output value of my country’s printed circuit boards will be US$36.91 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%. As the core application field of electronic inks, the continuous expansion of printed circuit boards in the future will surely drive the domestic electronic ink market demand to continue to increase.

At this stage, against the backdrop of increasing market demand for electronic inks and printing inks, the scale of the domestic ink market continues to expand, and the industry has broad prospects for development. According to the “China Ink Industry Segment Demand and Development Opportunities Research Report 2022-2026” released by the Industrial Research Center, my country The ink market size will grow from 44.38 billion yuan in 2017 to 61.59 billion yuan in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.77% during the period.

There are a large number of domestic ink companies, but most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises, with small scale and low industry concentration. At this stage, the leading companies in the domestic ink market mainly include Yip’s Chemical, Toyo Ink, DEX, Tianlong Ink, etc. In 2021, the market share of leading companies will not exceed 16%, and the market is relatively fragmented. In the future, as domestic environmental protection efforts continue to strengthen, more ink companies with lower production capacity and higher pollution will continue to disappear. The domestic market share will gradually move closer to leading companies with higher production technology and stronger strength. In the future, the concentration of the ink industry will be will keep rising.

Industrial Analysts personnel said that in recent years, against the background of rapid development of the application market, the domestic ink market demand has continued to increase and the scale has continued to expand. The industry development prospects are good. At this stage, the domestic ink industry has gradually transformed from a period of rapid development to a period of steady transformation. Local companies are constantly adjusting product structures, increasing research and development efforts, and promoting industry concentration, thereby promoting the industry to move toward low energy consumption, no pollution, and multi-color printing. The direction of quick drying continues to develop.