Graphic Arts Industry Enterprises in Slovenia

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 Slovenia remained essentially flat from 2012 to 2022. Not even the pandemic made much of a dent in the numbers. It should be remarked, however, that the printing industry in Slovenia is relatively small.

The forecast expects the number of companies to remain flat. Slovenia 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, for example, the Far East. 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 625 in 2012 to about 580 by 2030, which is due to a 0.9% annual decline in the forecast.

Source: digitalprintexpert.de / 2024

As in all countries, the majority of companies in the graphic arts industry in Slovenia are small. About 89% had less than 10 employees (even after adjusting for dormant or non-productive companies) in 2022, a much higher rate than the average in Europe. Only 2.3% of all enterprises have more than 50 employees, which is lower than the average share in Europe.

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 211 print enterprises in 2022—which equates to about 25% of the total number of graphic arts and printing industry enterprises in Slovenia.

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 Spain. 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.

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