2024 Top International Ink Companies Report

As has been the case for the past two years, “stability” is a word that can describe the current state of the ink industry. The pandemic is now a few years behind us. The dire raw material situation has finally arrived at a new normal for the most part. The ink industry has been able to navigate most of the geopolitical and economic concerns, from the Middle East and Red Sea to Ukraine and Russia as well as a global economic slowdown.

The past year has been a quiet one in terms of mergers and acquisitions on the ink side, with the top companies all remaining rather silent. The supplier side has also been fairly stable. Meanwhile, the packaging and digital ink segments continues to grow, while the publication and commercial side declines.

With all of this being said, it should be noted that the printing industry is undergoing a significant wave of consolidation on the packaging side that can impact the ink industry as well as its other suppliers. In September 2023, Smurfit Kappa and WestRock signed an agreement to combine their companies into Smurfit WestRock, which, if the merger goes through, would create a company with adjusted annual revenue of approximately $34 billion as of June 2023.

In April 2024, International Paper and DS Smith Plc announced they reached an agreement to combine their companies; pro forma 2023 combined revenues were approximately $28.2 billion.

And on the metal packaging side, Sonoco Products Company announced plans in June 2024 to acquire Eviosys, Europe’s leading food cans, ends and closures producer, which had $2.5 billion in sales in 2023.

The result of these three huge mergers, should they go through, will have an impact on the ink industry. It remains to be seen how all of this will shake out.

David Savastano
Ink World Editor
dsavastano@rodmanmedia.com