Extensive growth and advancement in the Internet and e-retail business are identified as a few of the major factors behind the drop in the demand for paper on a global scale. However, regions such as Asia, the Middle East, and Africa alongside Latin America are observed to experience sustained growth in the consumption of paper. The major cost driving factors for the paper industry include raw material and the feedstock, which constitutes a significant share of the total cost of production. Additionally, the cost of labor (which is dependent on the abundance of labor) also has an impact on the paper industry.
Dynamics of The Global Paper Industry
A thorough paper market analysis show trends in the global paper industry that ensure demand for high-quality and premium paper products that are manufactured to meet consumer requirements of higher print performance and durability. Paper and paper products may also be designed to meet the compatibility criteria favoring the most recent printing technologies. To best understand the dynamics of the paper industry, experts pay attention to various genres of technological innovations made in the paper industry. Premium Digital Tough, Tear Coated Paper, Heavyweight Coated Paper, and New Dry Coated Paper are few of the paper industry trends that manufacturers are investing in. Companies such as Alberta Newsprint Company use web-based inkjet technology. It is increasingly gaining recognition as one of the most pioneering innovations in paper industry products. Other major players in the paper industry making a paradigm shift include Holmen, International Paper Company, UPM, and Stora Enso.
The paper industry can be segmented into sanitary paper, packaging paper or graphic paper. Graphic paper is used for the purpose of communication and includes two main paper grade types – newsprint, and printing & writing papers.
Key growth drivers for the global paper industry are the growing daily print circulation in developing nations, as well as an increased sale of printed books in the U.S. Experts also account for the growing literacy rate and reading capacity in the developing nations for the growth of paper buying capacity and paper manufacturing. This is getting increasingly bridged by the government policies in countries like Thailand, China, and India towards web-based education and smart classrooms.
As a developing trend, the Chinese paper market is observed to extensively procure recycled paper from the established economies of North America, Japan, and Europe at cheap prices. This has empowered China to be a leading and aggressively growing supplier of paper and paper products in the Asia Pacific region. This position was earlier held by the U.S.before the industrialists there made a business shift from paper to metallic tapes and Information Technology equipment.
Classification of Paper Industry
The paper industry is classified into raw materials, its various distribution channels, and the types of products. The quality and quantity of the products alongside the nature of the end-users also govern the functioning and profits for the paper industry. The global paper industry is dominated by the North American countries of the United States and Canada, European countries such as Sweden and Finland and the Asian countries of South Korea, China, and Russia.
Case of The Decline In The Paper Industry Worldwide Global
For the past decade, the global paper and pulp mill industry has contracted. This is primarily due to a shift towards the digital media and paperless communication across most developed economies. The demand for printing & writing and, newsprint has declined due to a shift toward the application of digital media and web advertising. Factors such as the emergence of online e-commerce have increased overall demand for paper-less advertisements. It is noted that the paper mill industry in the US is expected to decline at the rate of 2.5 percent through 2022. Furthermore, revenues are also predicted to decline from $33.8-$33.6 billion in the speculated time. However, products such as the sanitary paper products manufacturing industry are observing a notable rise of 0.6 percent to $12 billion by 2022.
Paper-less operations have seeped in almost all government departments, bank transfers, and policy regulatory bodies and so on. These departments have switched to electronic data due to the convenience of improved accessibility, retrievability, speed, and safety. Such factors and trends are building grounds for a rapid decline in the global paper industry. Few of the other trends include a decline of paper price, the conversion, and transformation of major graphic mills into packaging paper mills. Rapid urbanization leading to the internet-aided conversion of media and promotional materials for advertising and Public Relations is also a driving force towards the decline in the circulation of printed media such as magazines and newspapers across developing and developed economies.
The world is converging through the internet. The web provides services of effective and cost-effective advertising, journalism and official communication. Upcoming technological advancement and its characteristic cost-effective nature have led to a significant decline in paper mills and printing houses.
You may also like: 4 Ways to Use Your Online Presence to Promote and Upsell Your Catalog
Leave a Reply