The Future of Dye-Sublimation Printing to 2021, a new report published by Smithers Pira, provides an in-depth, long-term assessment of the rapidly evolving market for this print technology. An estimated total of around 384 million sq m of fabric were printed digitally via dye sublimation in the year to Q1 2016, having grown by just under 18.4 percent in the past year 2015-16. This is set to rise to 892 million sq m in 2021. The four major end-use segments are garments; household (carpets, wall coverings and upholstery); technical and visual communications (displays and signage); and technical textiles.
Applications of digital dye sublimation textile printing include, in order of run length: unique one-offs, sampling, micro-runs, short production runs and increasingly long bulk production runs in the multiple thousands of linear metres. This last is the new battleground with conventional analogue textile print, which dye sublimation is looking to disrupt with a new generation of high-productivity presses. Dye sublimation specific machine annual revenues amount to a total of €279 million ($304 million) to Q1 2016. Dye sublimation inks revenues amount to a total of around €259 million to end Q1 2016.
