Singapore Wide-Format Inkjet Ink Developments August 2023

This semi-annual brief on wide-format inkjet inks demand also discusses external developments pertinent to an assessment of near-term printing prospects.

Wide-Format Inkjet Ink Print Demand

International Print Demand

• Central banks’ monetary tightening has yet to induce a material slowdown in global print demand.
• Global print demand expanded at a healthy clip in H1 2023, boosted in part by the fading of negative supply constraints.
• Growth has been fairly diverse across countries alongside the widening schism between goods and services print spending.
• Overall, global print demand is poised to slow in H2 2023 and H1 2024, driven by the cumulative effects of monetary policy tightening on consumer as well as business spending.
• Thereafter, global print demand is set to gradually pick up in H2 2024, as monetary policy eases.
• At this juncture, two main non-remote risks cloud the global print demand outlook.
• First, a policy misstep in advanced economies (AEs) such as overtightening, could trigger liquidity stresses and instability in AE money markets, and/or emerging market debt stresses, with negative spillovers to Asia.
• Second, a strong El Niño event could put upward pressure on a range of wide-format inkjet ink raw materials prices in addition to pigments and eco-solvents, triggering another round of ink cost and price acceleration.

Singapore Print Demand

• The Singapore print demand has slowed discernibly since late 2022. However, the sectoral growth outturns have varied significantly, with demand broadly on a three-speed trajectory.
• The external-facing industries have been in the doldrums since late last year, but their weakness has yet to spill over to the domestic printing sectors, which continued to record above-trend growth in Q2 2023.
• Meanwhile, printing in the travel-related industries have continued to reap dividends from the reopening of borders across the external economies.
• For the rest of 2023, there is likely to be some convergence in growth rates among the sectors, with modest recovery in the external-facing sectors and moderation in domestic-oriented and travel-related activity.
• However, there remains downside risks to growth. The greatest uncertainty lies in the external-facing sectors, which could languish for longer.
• The recovery in the external-facing sectors is contingent on final demand conditions towards the year end which remains uncertain.
• Overall, for the year as a whole, Singapore’s print growth is projected to slow from 3.6% in 2022 to 0.5–1.5% in 2023.

Pricing Policy

• In April 2023, SAM★INK® maintained the prevailing rate of pricing policy band, with no change to its width and the level at which it was centred.
• Five successive pricing policy tightening moves since October 2021 have dampened imported inflation and tempered the momentum of price increases.
• With core inflation forecast to ease materially by end-2023 and risks to growth intensifying, we assessed that prevailing pricing policy band was sufficiently tight and appropriate for securing medium-term price stability.

Thank you,

Sam Leong MSc MBA (USA)
Director, SAM★INK®, Inkjet Systems Pte Ltd.