The European statistical office released May 2020 production index data. This is currently the best information source on how the European printing industry has performed recently, but it has some limitations. It is an index of production volumes compared to the year 2015—a value of 101 would indicate that the production in the respective month is 1% higher than the average of 2015. It does not represent prices, which should be the more important measurement. The data will be prone to revisions as well, as the speed of the production drop is likely not going to sit well with the statistical models used by the statistical offices. Additionally, the printing industry comprises many small companies, which are not represented well in this type of activity monitoring. Finally, the data is more weighed towards commercial print as not all packaging and label print is included here. and in-plant and copy shops are missing completely.

At the beginning of 2020, in pre-COVID times, the European Union manufacturing output ranked about 6 points higher than in 2015. The production index for printing and recorded media (the latter is only a very small portion) ranks about 8 points lower, confirming that printing output did decline in recent years. It should be kept in mind, however, that this is production volume not revenues and hence does not take into account the trend towards higher-value products. It is also missing parts of label and packaging.

The decline in print and all other manufacturing was surprisingly in lockstep. Declines started in March and, in April, both indices ranked about 30% lower than their pre-COVID average. Recovery started in May with a gain of about 8 index points.