Graphic Arts Industry Enterprises in Bulgaria

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 Western Europe shows a steady decline—the effect of ongoing consolidation in the industry.

Central and Eastern European countries did fare better, however. The number of establishments in Bulgaria declined on average by 0.7% from 2012 to 2022 only. The forecast expects the number of companies to remain flat. Bulgaria is profiting from printing volumes shifting from Western Europe to CEE due to lower labor costs while being much closer to the end markets than e.g. the Far East. So far, Bulgaria benefitted less from the shift and the printing industry is still modest in size. However, as transportation routes are improving and internal demand is picking up as well, there should be some future growth. This will mainly affect revenues, which are expected to continue to rise, while the pressure to consolidate will keep the number of establishments flat. Overall, the number of graphic arts establishments is likely to decline slightly from about 650 in 2012 to less than 620 by 2030.

Source: digitalprintexpert.de/2024

As in all countries, the majority of companies in the graphic arts industry in Bulgaria are small. More than 70% have less than 10 employees (even after adjusting for dormant or non-productive companies). The export focus can be seen in a decent share of larger companies, however, although the total number is small. More than 6% of all enterprises have more than 50 employees, which is above the European average.

There are other important print producers that are, statistically speaking, not part of the graphic arts industry. Those are folding carton, flexible packaging, corrugated, and label printing, plus photocopy services and in-house printing. This adds another 415 print enterprises in 2022—totalling about two-thirds of the number of graphic arts industry enterprises in Bulgaria.

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 Croatia. 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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