After a lot of speculation, finally the first sets of (real) numbers are out on how different print applications fared in 2020. The German printing industry association (BVDM) just published their 2020 print industry stats. The faint hearted should be warned—it’s not a pretty picture, although not unexpected.

In 2020, the overall print revenues in Germany declined by 11.5%, from €12.2 to €10.8 billion. This is somewhat in the expected range, as 2020 bore the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. Based on the production volume index, a decline in the 10% range was expected. Still, this is the largest revenue decline in more than two decades. Including prepress/premedia and finishing, revenue declined from €13.7 to €12.1 billion, almost the same rate. It should be kept in mind that “non-classic” print segments like packaging, copy shops, in-house print, and data center print are not included in these numbers.

There are some interesting details when looking at the print applications, however. Some print applications were expected to suffer more than others, but aside from anecdotal evidence, there had been no real data so far.