I know Ink World editor David Savastano has already covered in full the investment made in Toyo Printing Inks in Türkiye on the Ink World website, but I’ll mention it here right at the beginning of this Europe report for completeness and as a hook for this article.

Briefly, Toyo Printing Inks opened in May 2025 a US$70-million printing ink plant in the Manisa Organised Industrial Zone in western Türkiye that has doubled its production capacity. Yakup Benli, CEO and board member for Toyo Printing Inks, said (among other opening remarks) that “our new facility will be a production and export base not only for Turkey but also for neighboring countries. While our facility, equipped with advanced technology and automation systems, ensures efficiency and energy saving, environmental sustainability is also prioritized.”  This plays into the other growth trends and observations reported below.

Strong Growth Trends in Eastern Europe

The European Printing Ink Association (EuPIA) has published the latest annual statistics on printing ink sales in Europe as part of its annual report for 2024. The data is based on a sample group that represents 90% of the total European industry’s sales.

Sales of packaging inks in 2024 rose by 4.7% to 510,000 tons and in value terms, this represented a rise of 1.6% over 2023 to a total of €2.2 billion. Packaging inks encompass flexo inks, specialty gravure, UV and EB curing inks and associated varnishes.

The performance of the publication inks sector reveals a considerable divergence, with 2024 sales falling by 5.2% to 200,000 tonnes and their associated total value dropping more steeply, by 8.5% to €700 million. Publication inks include web offset inks (coldest and heatset), sheetfed offset inks, publication gravure and associated overprint varnishes.

Scrying deeper into the individual national data, more marked divergences become apparent. The top seven markets are the Western European big five together with Poland and Türkiye; all of these have turnover of approximately €200 million or more.

After that, the turnover of the remaining national industries falls away very quickly, with The Netherlands being the eighth-largest ink market on fewer than €100 million turnover. Of the big five in Western Europe, three of them show declines in sales value and Italy emerges as the best performer, with sales looking flat at best at about €380 million, and Spain similarly even at about €200 million. German, French and UK turnovers all fell.

What emerges more positively from the data is a marked trend where all of the growth markets in 2024 show up in Central and Eastern Europe. This starts with Türkiye and Poland as parts of the big seven, and then on the lower tier, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine and Belarus. This continues a similar pattern and upward trends that was evident in 2023.

Also in 2023, there had been sizeable drops in the figures for both the packaging and publication sectors, with packaging ink volumes declining from 530,000 tons in 2022 to 490,000 tons in 2023, and publication ink volumes falling from 250,000 tons to 210,000 tons. Thus, there has been some recovery in the packaging sector and a continued downward trend in the publication ink sector, which has been evident since 2021; a 33% decline over three years. 

The equivalent chart for the values of all the inks sold by manufacturers in Europe is rather less illuminating (and not given here), with publication inks at €800 million for 2020-2022 and €700 million for 2023-24.

New Information on the Print Support Sectors in Europe

A new report covering printing support markets in Europe offers has recently been published by Verified Market Reports, and it highlights some of the latest factors and influences that are shaping the national printing industries in Europe’s major economies.

One of the first observations to be drawn is that those countries in Western Europe are all united by the influences of sustainability and legislation, whereas those it mentions at the east of the continent (Türkiye and Russia) are not. A few of the headline trends, varied according to country, emerge as follows:

• Germany’s print sector is being driven by investment in new technologies, as well as there being an increase in digitalization.

• The UK is experiencing rising demand for high-quality printed materials in both the packaging and publishing sectors.

• In Italy, there is also growing interest in how 3D printing can be leveraged, as well as a focus on high-quality print for the fashion sector and for luxe-end goods.

• France is seeing rising demand in the spheres of personalization and short-run printing.

• Among some supply challenges in Russia, rising demand for coated paper has spurred its native industry to produce more coated papers for use by industry. Russia’s printing industry has also been forced to source materials from different origins.

Türkiye’s enviable geographical position is being capitalized on; the industry is positioning itself as a regional hub for printing services, whether for internal or external demand. Strong demand from the Turkish publishing and packaging sectors is prompting rising investment, which consequently strengthens output quality and enhances manufacturing capabilities.

In total, the global market for printing support activities is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% between 2025 and 2033, when the market will be worth an estimated US$ 600 billion, with Europe accounting for a quarter of the global market and North America 28%. Asia is the largest regional market at 35%, and support for digital printing is the most valuable segment of activity.

Further to some of the repeating trends drawn on above for Europe, packaging solutions emerge as yet another driver for the industry; personalization and e-commerce packaging are further drivers. Finally, the industry is saddled with many challenges such as rising raw material costs, regulatory pressures and intense competition between rival companies on the basis of price that continue to shave profit margins ever thinner.