Foreword: In recent years, China's ink industry continues to grow at a steady high speed, its output continues to expand, product varieties continue to increase, quality continues to improve, and grades continue to increase. There are more than a thousand varieties of domestic ink, and the share of medium and high-end products among them has been continuously expanding. The quality of some products has approached or reached the level of similar foreign products. In recent years, China’s total ink production volume has maintained its position as the world’s fourth-ranked leader and has consistently ranked among the top three countries in the world in Germany, Japan and the United States. Total production in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 were 18.5, 20.5, 22.0, and 246,000 tons, respectively, with year-on-year growth of 8.7%, 10.5%, 7.3%, and 11.8%, respectively.
First, the development of foreign ink industry
Since 2000, the world's major ink-producing countries such as the United States, Japan, and Germany have experienced sluggish economic development and a sluggish printing industry. The ink industry has continued to slump. According to the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM), US ink sales fell 3.3% in the first three quarters of 2003, while sales fell 4.1%, in the area of ​​publishing and commercial paper. Sales volume and sales decreased by 3.4% and 5.0% respectively, while in the packaging sector, they decreased by 2.8% and 3.0% respectively. These data indicate that not only sales are declining, prices have fallen even more. As SUN Chemical's North American President MIKEMURPHY (Mike Murphy) said: “In the US ink industry, 2003 was a challenging year. Recent government reports indicate that the economy is recovering, but in the ink industry, the recovery signal Still weak, the weak printing market and excess production capacity have led to fierce competition among printing companies, and as a result, more printing companies have shifted their pressure to suppliers, causing price turmoil in the ink market."
Second, the domestic ink business development status
There are more than 400 existing ink production enterprises in China. According to the statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics, there were 11 production enterprises with output over 5,000 tons in 2003, and 3 companies with more than 10,000 tons: the output of Tianjin Toyo Ink Co., Ltd. was 16,600 tons. Accounted for 8.16% of the country's total output: Hanghua Ink Chemical Co., Ltd. output was 14,300 tons, accounting for 7.04%: Taiyuan Gaoshi·Lawry Ink Chemical Co., Ltd. was 13,900 tons, accounting for 6.81%.
In recent years, the total output of China's ink industry has continued to grow steadily year after year. The average annual growth rate has reached about 10%, and the growth rate in 2002-2003 has reached 19.31% (14.5% in data), and the growth rate in 2004 is still at 10%. %the above. There are two main reasons why China's ink companies can continue to grow at a high rate of production: (1) Rapid economic growth. The growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) was 9.1% in 2003, which led to the rapid development of the packaging and printing industry, resulting in an increase in demand for ink. (2) Domestic and foreign companies and funds are continuously involved in the continuous increase of the production capacity of China's ink industry; (3) Some of China's large-scale ink manufacturing enterprises continue to expand their projects and continuously integrate industrial structures through the introduction of advanced technologies and efficient equipment. Absorb foreign advanced management experience, continue to increase technological transformation and increase scientific research and development, and adopt multiple operating methods.
At present, there is still a big gap between China's ink companies and foreign countries:
(1) The scale of the company is small, and the market share of individual companies is not high.
In foreign countries, the ink industry is a highly concentrated industry. For example, in the European market in 1999, the market share of major ink companies is as follows: Sun Chemical is 34%, BASF (BASF) is 14%, and Gebr. Schmidt (Schmidt Brothers) was 11%, and the 4th to 6th Michael Huber, Flint Ink and Siegwerk were 7%. The top 6 companies accounted for 80% of the market share, while the top 4 accounted for 66% of the market share. According to Bain's classification of industrial monopolies and competition, it belongs to the “highly concentrated and oligopolistic†industry.
In China, from the point of view of 2003 production, the top six companies accounted for only 34.24% of the total output. The top 10 companies also only accounted for 47.47%. At the same time, no one company exceeded 10%. Even from the perspective of enterprise groups, DIC occupied. The largest share, its three companies: Shanghai DIC, Shenzhen, Shenzhen, Japan, Taiyuan, Gao's 2003 total production of 28,100 tons, accounting for only 13.82% of the country. According to Bain's index of absolute concentration index analysis, the domestic ink industry's market structure is a competitive market structure, which belongs to the “low-concentration and oligopolistic typeâ€. Compared with foreign countries, it is a low-concentration industry with barriers to entry. It is also relatively low.
The "low-concentration and omission-occupied" market structure in China's ink industry directly affects the development capacity of ink companies in China, especially technological innovation capabilities. The higher the degree of market concentration, the more active the technological innovation in the industry. As China's ink technology lags behind the world level, the primary task of China's ink companies is to change the status quo by strengthening technological innovation, and gradually expand the scale and further increase market share.
(B) The ability of technological innovation is not strong.
In addition to the use of capital to achieve the expansion of scale, domestic companies must also make technological innovations. This point was also highlighted at the 47th NPIRI (American Printing Ink Research Association) technical seminar held last year. In view of the large gap between domestic enterprises and foreign companies in terms of technical level or production efficiency, it is necessary to strengthen portfolio innovation.
"Ink combination innovation" can essentially be considered as follows: Under the guidance of the development strategy of ink manufacturing companies, systemic coordination of innovation behaviors is constrained by organizational and technological factors. "Ink combination innovation" generally includes various combinations of various innovative behaviors such as product innovation, process innovation, institutional innovation, management innovation, raw material innovation, and equipment innovation. This combination innovation is not limited to ink companies themselves, but also includes inks Equipment companies' cooperation and innovation.
Due to the technical characteristics of ink, it is determined that "raw material innovation" is an important part of "product innovation" and "equipment innovation" is the basis of "process innovation." Therefore, the most important of the ink companies are the following two combination innovation methods: (1) a combination of organizational culture innovation and technological innovation, and (2) a combination of product innovation and process innovation.
Third, the development of China's ink market prospects
In recent years, China's ink has continued to grow steadily, and its future is very promising. Today, the per capita consumption level of printed matter in China is still less than 1/20 of that of developed countries. The per capita consumption of paper and paperboard is in the 50th to 60th place in the world in recent years, and the gap between per capita ink consumption and the world advanced level is even greater. This gap shows that China's market has great potential for development. This potential will gradually erupt with the sustained and stable development of China's national economy and form a huge impetus for market development.
At present, China's printing ink production, in addition to increasing production, should focus on avoiding low-level duplicated construction, increase industrial restructuring efforts, increase product research and development efforts, increase production concentration, improve product technology content, increase variety, Improve the quality, improve the quality and improve the quality of the stability and product uniformity, so that it is adapted to today's multi-color, high-speed, quick-drying, pollution-free and low-consumption modern printing needs. In order to improve the overall level of China's ink as soon as possible to meet the continuous development of China's printing industry needs, and further enhance the domestic printing ink in the international market competitiveness.
In addition, the current ink price factor still affects most of China's consumption, but the demand for quality and service is gradually increasing. The region is still an advantage that ink companies can use, but it also shows that the degree of marketization of the domestic ink industry is relatively limited. With the intensification of market competition, ink companies need to continuously improve their own product quality and services to overcome a series of problems in cash flow difficulties.
Editor's note: China has now become the fourth largest ink producer in the world, and more than 400 small and medium-sized enterprises are located throughout the country, but no one can produce and sell 10% of the country's total output. At the same time, China's ink industry is unevenly distributed throughout the country, and the differences between east and west industries are very obvious. The major ink companies are mostly concentrated in the eastern coastal areas. With the implementation of China's western development strategy, the overall level of the ink industry in inland provinces is expected to be obtained in the next few years. Pick up.
