One of the hottest topics in packaging print today is Corrugated, and for many reasons. The estimated total of all corrugated boxes produced in the US is approximately 100 billion per year with ecommerce being the big growth driver. Amazon alone is estimated to be shipping about 2 million packages a day including padded envelopes—and growing. Overall, it is a market area that is showing a solid growth trajectory. Smithers Pira projects the global market will increase strongly at an average of around 3.7% CAGR to reach 170 million tons, and approach $300 billion in 2023. A more specific breakdown of growth opportunities are seen in the chart below.

Growth prospects for corrugated board 2018–2023 by end use

According to a recent and ongoing study by Karstedt Partners, if you break these numbers down a bit to focus on high graphics production, or those corrugated pieces with 3+ colors, we are looking at roughly 20% to 30% of the total. That would include corrugated boxes and displays. Breaking it down further, in that same study, they found digital printing accounts for about 10% to 20% of the high graphics production total. However, putting it in perspective, digital packaging is still only about 3.33% of all printed corrugated packaging (one color up to and including high graphics) and perhaps a little over 2.0% of all corrugated packaging, since there is so much non-printed. That would seem to suggest opportunity!