Digital Printing: Development Trend Of Textile Digital Printing In China

Digital printing has penetrated into clothing, home textiles, car decoration, advertising, personalized customization and other fields. In China, new textile materials with independent intellectual property rights and digital ink-jet printing technology have brought more personalized experience to the textile industry. Digital printing textile is close to life and integrates art and science and technology, which well interprets the current concept of environmental protection. It is a perfect connection between the production and design of textile processing industry. In the future, the popularity of digital printing products will be higher and higher, and digital printing will become the inevitable trend of the development of printing and dyeing industry.

From 2019 to 2021, the output of China's digital ink-jet printing cloth will increase from 1.4 billion meters to 3 billion meters, with an increase of 20% in 2021 compared with that in 2020. It is estimated that the output of China's textile digital printing cloth will reach 4.3 billion meters in 2023, accounting for more than 15% of the whole textile printing market. Digital heat transfer printing has the advantages of environmental protection, high efficiency, flexibility, simplicity and high-quality output, which is in line with the development strategy of industrial upgrading and energy saving and emission reduction and people's personalized consumption trend. It is estimated that the output of China's digital ink-jet printing cloth will reach 7.5 billion meters by 2026.

Forecast production of digital printed fabric in China from 2021 to 2026

(unit: 100 million meters)

　 　 Data source: according to the statistics of public information.

There are many kinds of digital ink-jet printing inks for textile industry. They are all water-based inks. According to the properties of colorants, they can be divided into disperse ink, active ink, acid ink and pigment ink, among which disperse ink, active ink and pigment ink are commonly used. In 2021, disperse dye ink is expected to account for 79.78% of the total textile digital printing ink consumption, reactive ink accounts for 10.31% and pigment ink accounts for 8%.

Proportion of China's digital ink jet printing in 2021

　　 Data source: according to the statistics of public information.

　　 The cost of digital printing in China has decreased and the transformation of flat screen printing customers has been accelerated

With the technical progress of digital printing equipment, the improvement of production efficiency and the decline of ink price, the digital printing equipment has developed towards a higher speed in recent two years. From the initial 3 / 4 head machine to the current 12 / 15 head machine, the rapid increase in production speed has gradually caught up with the comprehensive cost of traditional printing. With the market application of transfer printing machine with 30 or even more nozzles, the production cost of the digital printing machine is declining, and its competitiveness is more and more obvious compared with the traditional printing. At present, the cost of digital transfer printing is close to that of flat screen printing. In the future, more flat screen printing groups will transform to digital printing to meet the market demand.

Cost changes of digital jet printing and traditional printing in China from 2017 to 2021 (unit: yuan / M)

　　 Data source: according to the statistics of public information.

　　 Market scale and growth rate of textile digital printing ink in China

In 2019, China's textile digital ink-jet printing ink consumption was 22800 tons. In 2020, affected by the epidemic situation, the growth rate slowed down to 24900 tons. In 2021, due to the stable control of the epidemic situation, the liberalization of import and export trade, and the economic recovery, the consumption of textile digital ink-jet printing ink is about 30700 tons. It is estimated that by 2023, China's textile digital ink-jet printing ink consumption will reach about 38600 tons, and by 2025 it will reach about 49000 tons.

Ink consumption and growth trend of digital ink jet printing in China from 2019 to 2023

　　 Data source: according to the statistics of public information.

Generally speaking, although the market growth of China's textile industry will slow down in 2022, due to its unique advantages, digital printing still has a large market growth potential in the future.

(source: Textile Guide)