Graphic Arts Industry Enterprises in Austria

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.

Austria is no exception here. The number of establishments declined on average by 2.1% from 2012 to 2022. The forecast expects the decline rate to accelerate slightly. A reason is that companies have been kept operational by subsidies during the pandemic, which led to unusually low rates of shutdowns and even an uptick in 2021. This will lead to higher rates of shutdown in the next few years. Also, the rising operating costs currently will take its toll on companies not prepared to handle these cost and interest rate increases. Overall, the number of graphic arts establishments is likely to decline from about 850 in 2012 to less than 550 by 2030.

Source: digitalprintexpert.de , 2024

As in all countries, the majority of companies in the graphic arts industry in Austria is small. More than 80% have less than 10 employees (even after adjusting for dormant or non-productive companies). Only 3.5% of all enterprises have more than 50 employees, which is below the European average.

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 689 print enterprises in 2022—almost the same amount as graphic arts industry enterprises in Austria.

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 Belgium. A European overview can be found here: https://whattheythink.com/data/119946-sizing-european-print-industry/

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. https://store.whattheythink.com/downloads/european-print-industry-sizing-2024/.

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