Printers are becoming far more innovative in the way they operate and are moving quickly into new areas of revenue, according to a new survey by the PIAA.
The Industry Trends survey, conducted at the end of 2016 with the support of Media Super, was aimed at gathering information and sentiment amongst business owners in the print, packaging, visual communications and media technology sectors to help the national association understand the current state of the industry.
The focus was to capture a basic overview of the past six months and predict the six months ahead.
Many companies are becoming far more innovative in the way they operate and are moving into areas such as communications logistics, multi-channel marketing, advertising, digital design, and 3D print among other exciting areas of development, the survey found.
The print, packaging, visual communications and media technology industries are in a state of continual and rapid change. Some of the sub-classifications within the industry have declined in terms of revenue and employment. This perception is only based on a high-level view of the industry and does not take into account the lateral growth as businesses move into other areas, which are yet to be classified.
A lot of the more successful printing businesses in Australia are leading the way in reinventing themselves and some are moving away from seeing print as a primary revenue stream, according to a PIAA spokesperson.
Meanwhile, the Standard Media Index (SMI) said 2016 was the worst ever year for print advertising. SMI said revenues for consumer magazine advertising were down 18 per cent compared to 2015, and metropolitan newspaper ads fell by 14 per cent.
However, new figures from researcher emma found that print remains the preferred medium for the majority of Australians who read news media. November figures show that nine out of ten consumers - or 16.7 million Australians - read news media, with 80 per cent of them (13.5 million) preferring to read a printed newspaper.
There were approximately 111,800 employees working in the print, packaging, publishing, visual communications and media technology industries in 2016, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and IBISWorld.
The full Industry Trends report is available to members from the PIAA.