The new Printing Outlook 2025 report provides detailed analysis of the latest WhatTheyThink Business Outlook Survey, the latest industry economic data and macroeconomic trends, as well as industry and cultural technological trends to look out for in 2025 and beyond.

WhatTheyThink is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Printing Outlook 2025 now available at the WhatTheyThink Report Store.

Some highlights:

  • 14% of print businesses surveyed said that revenues for 2024 had increased more than 10% compared to 2023.
  • All told, 58% of print businesses surveyed reported an increase in revenues in 2024 compared to 2023.
  • 74% of print businesses expect revenues to increase in 2025 over 2024.
  • The top challenge this survey was “increasing plant productivity”, selected by 40% of respondents. “National economic conditions” and “pricing,” both selected by 38%, were tied as the number two challenge.
  • “Improving economic conditions” topped of the New Business Opportunities list at 41%—although we’re not sure how much better the economy could have gotten.
  • “We have no planned investments” was selected by 22% of respondents; “finishing/bindery equipment for digital equipment” (23%), “workflow automation software” (16%), and “mailing equipment/software” (also 16%) look to be the top investments for 2025.
  • 58% of print businesses have hiring plans for 2025, with the sought-after employees a mix of production and sales personnel.

The executive report looks back at 2024 as well as ahead to what the industry can expect, economically and technologically, in 2025. The high inflation of the immediate post-pandemic was a major challenge through 2023 and had largely abated in 2024—although a low inflation rate didn’t mean that prices came down appreciably. The high costs of virtually everything—from supplies, to energy, to insurance, to rent—meant that profit margins were even thinner than usual, even if revenues and jobs were up. And employment remains a perennial challenge. What other trends are impacting the industry, and how will they play out in 2025 and beyond?

The report features the results of the WhatTheyThink Printing Industry Business Outlook Survey conducted in Fall/Winter 2024, and includes current and expected business conditions, top business challenges, top business opportunities, and planned investments for 2024. Additional questions asked about what new capabilities they had recently added and were planning to add—production inkjet? Wide-format? Textile printing? Packaging? Label printing? The report also looks at print businesses’ hiring plans for the next 12 months and what positions are being sought. The report also takes a deep dive on the current state of digital embellishments.

The report also offers the latest government data on shipments, establishments, profits, and employment for commercial printing, signage and display, and packaging and converting businesses. The report also includes macroeconomic data to look at how the overall economy might impact print businesses in 2025, and includes an industry forecast to 2034, as well as technology and cultural trends the industry should prepare itself for in 2025 and beyond.

Print business owners will find the report essential for their planning, in order to put the marketplace and their strategic actions in realistic perspective. Industry suppliers will benefit from the insights into printer decision-making processes and the foundation of new industry demographic data that debuts in this report. Non-economic trends also offer ideas for what to pay attention to in the new year, and larger cultural and technological; trends indicate where marketing professionals and brandowners will likely be focusing their promotional dollars.

“2023’s Printing Outlook report had the theme ‘back in black,’ as 2022 saw demand for print resurging from the pandemic,” said WhatTheyThink managing editor Richard Romano, author of the report, “and 2023 had seen a return to something more akin to pre-pandemic normalcy. 2024 has been a mixed bag, but even those businesses that saw business booming found themselves challenged by higher costs. We enter 2025 with a strong economy overall, but a great deal of uncertainty over tariffs, trade wars, and mass layoffs of Federal employees, among other challenges that will impact the economic landscape—and this the demand for print.”

The report is available in the WhatTheyThink Report Store at https://store.whattheythink.com/downloads/printing-outlook-2025/.