Graphic Arts Industry Enterprises in Ireland

The graphic arts industry includes graphic arts print, often also termed commercial print (although including publication and specialty print in this overview), as well as newspaper print, prepress and postpress companies. Since 2012 the number of printing establishments in Europe shows a steady decline—the effect of ongoing consolidation in the industry.

Ireland, however, is bucking the trend. Although the printing industry is relatively small, numbers showed good growth from 2015 to 2022, equalling 4.2% average annual growth rate for the 2012 to 2022 period. Some of the growth should be connected to the Brexit, which is cutting off Ireland from the traditional print suppliers in the UK to some extent. After the UK vote in 2016, negotiations with the EU started in 2017 and it soon became obvious that considerable tax and customs burdens would ensue.

Most shifts should have taken place by now and the forecast expects the numbers first to remain flat and then to decline slightly again in the future. This would equate to an average annual decline of 0.8%, after the number of establishments topped out at 470. The decline will be driven by more consolidation in all sectors. Overall, the number of graphic arts establishments is likely to grow from slightly above 300 in 2012 to around 420 by 2030. This is a noticeably better performance than most countries in Europe.

Source: digitalprintexpert.de / 2024

As in all countries, the majority of companies in the graphic arts industry in Ireland is small. About 79% have less than 10 employees (even after adjusting for dormant or non-productive companies). Only 3.0% of all enterprises have more than 50 employees. Both values are close to the European average, although Ireland has no graphic arts company in the 250+ employee size class.

There are other important print producers that are, statistically speaking, not part graphic arts industry. Those are folding carton, flexible packaging, corrugated, and label printing, plus photocopy services and in-house printing. This adds another 437 print enterprises in 2022—close to the amount of graphic arts industry enterprises in Ireland.

Further Industry Data

This article is part of a bi-weekly series of pieces looking at print industry data in 24 European countries. The next article will feature Italy. A European overview can be found here.

A breakout of all segments by country and timelines for the number of establishments, revenue, and employment in the graphic arts industry and other print segments can be found in the 2024 European Print Industry Sizing report. The report also features the number of companies by size class and country. The report can be purchased from the WhatTheyThink store.

For questions and clarifications, please contact me at [email protected]