Publish Time: 2025-10-25 Origin: Site
The Chinese label printing industry will experience a period of structural transformation and technology-driven rapid growth from 2025 to 2030. According to the latest industry data, the scale of China's label printing market has exceeded 60 billion yuan in 2024, and is expected to reach 68 billion yuan in 2025, with an average annual growth rate of around 7.5%. It is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan by 2030. This growth is mainly attributed to the continuous expansion of demand in end-use applications such as consumer goods packaging, logistics transportation, and electronic appliances. In terms of international trade, the Southeast Asian market will become a new growth point for China's label printing equipment exports, with an export volume of 2.5 billion yuan in 2025, accounting for 35% of the industry's total exports.
From a sub-segment perspective, self-adhesive labels are expected to dominate the industry in the period from 2025 to 2030. The market size of self-adhesive labels in 2025 is approximately 45 billion yuan, accounting for about 65% of the overall label printing market. This dominance is due to the wide application of self-adhesive labels in fields such as cosmetics, food and beverages, and medicine, especially the increasing demand for high-precision labels in the pharmaceutical industry. It is expected that the proportion of self-adhesive labels in the pharmaceutical sector will increase by 28% in 2027.
The risk of squeezing profits due to fluctuations in raw material prices. In the Chinese label printing industry, fluctuations in raw material prices have become one of the key factors affecting the profit levels of enterprises. In 2023, the comprehensive procurement cost of main raw materials such as paper, film, ink, and adhesives in the label printing industry accounted for 60%-70% of the total production cost. Among them, paper-based raw materials accounted for 35%-45% of the total. According to data from the China Printing and Equipment Materials Industry Association, the price of coated paper increased by 18.7% year-on-year in 2022, and the fluctuation range of BOPP film prices was as high as 23.5%. This intense fluctuation directly led to a decline in the industry's average gross profit margin from 28.6% in 2021 to 24.3% in 2022. From the supply side of the market, the domestic paper industry is affected by increasingly strict environmental policies, and small and medium-sized production capacities continue to be cleared. In 2023, the capacity of white card paper decreased by 12% compared to the previous year, while the price of imported wood pulp was affected by international supply chain disruptions, with the landed price of coniferous pulp in the first quarter of 2023 rising by 56.8% compared to the same period in 2020. From the demand side, with the continuous expansion of the e-commerce logistics and fast-moving consumer goods markets, the scale of China's label printing market reached 58.7 billion yuan in 2022, and is expected to exceed 80 billion yuan in 2025. This supply-demand contradiction will further intensify the risk of raw material price fluctuations.
In the next five years, fluctuations in raw material prices will remain a continuous challenge for the industry. Based on the current trend of the commodity market, it is expected that the prices of paper-based raw materials in the printing industry will remain in a high-oscillating state from 2024 to 2026, with an average fluctuation range of 15%-20%. Under this background, the industry will accelerate its transformation in three directions: Firstly, establishing a large-scale centralized procurement platform. Currently, 27% of leading enterprises have participated in joint procurement alliances, and this proportion is expected to increase to 40% by 2025. Secondly, promoting the research and development of raw material substitution technologies. The proportion of biobased film materials is expected to increase from 8% in 2023 to 25% in 2030. Thirdly, popularizing digital supply chain management systems. The proportion of enterprises using intelligent inventory management will increase from 35% in 2022 to 60% in 2025, optimizing procurement strategies through precise prediction of price fluctuation cycles. These measures will effectively enhance the industry's overall ability to cope with raw material price fluctuations, and it is expected that by 2030, the impact of raw material price fluctuations on profits can be reduced by 30%-40%.