Thermal Transfer Overprint Market Size, Share, Industry, Forecast and Outlook (2024-2031)

Thermal Transfer Overprint Market is segmented By Type (Single Head, Multiple Head), By Printing (Barcodes, Batch Codes, Data Codes, Graphic), By Ribbon (Resin, Special, Standard), By Application (Food and Beverages, Retail, Healthcare, Transportation & Logistics, Others), and By Region (North America, Europe, South America, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa) – Share, Size, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2024-2031

Thermal Transfer Overprint Market Overview

Thermal Transfer Overprint Market is expected to reach at a CAGR of 5.8% within the forecast period (2024-2031).

The thermal transfer over printer utilizes digital printing technology that overcomes numerous analog printing equipment deficiencies, such as roller coders, hot stamps, and hot foil printing technologies. Thermal transfer overprints have been designed to operate directly on flexible substrates, including flexible packaging items, unlike other labeling and coding facilities.

Under a ceramic coating, the print head consists of a collection of miniature print components, and a sheet is coated with colored wax and resin mixture on the thermal printer ribbon. When small areas of it come into contact with the heated elements, the mixture on the ribbon melts, which transfers and adheres color to the surface of the substrate as it passes under the printhead.

Thermal transfer printers can function in either continuous or intermittent printing modes, at the high-resolution print quality and on fast-moving production lines. A collection of messages may be printed, including pricing, date and time coding, barcodes, QR codes, logos, lists of ingredients or even marketing messages. The unique design of TTO products delivers a clean and user-friendly operation, ideal for coding on a range of substrates, including plastic films, flat packaging, label stock, plastic and foil.

Thermal Transfer Overprint Market Summary

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Thermal Transfer Overprint Market Dynamics 

The global thermal transfer overprint market is driven by the easy adoption of automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies for productivity improvement. The growing demand for TTO for print packaging in different end-users such as food and beverages and pharmaceuticals boosts the market's growth in recent times. Eco-friendly label ink manufacturers' innovation would also help the government support the sustainable environment and minimize waste during printing, creating great opportunities for thermal transfer overprints to proliferate in the market.

Easily adoption of automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies coupled with holding various advantages leading productivity improvement

At the moment of coding, thermal transfer overprints can adjust readily to change without the need for any mechanical changes. The easy addition of additional content, including new date, time, code lines and other such stuff, makes the technology more efficient. Thermal transfer overprints do not need warm-up time to get the print head to a suitable temperature, unlike hot stamp printers. Instead, thermal transfer overprints will print from the time switched on in less than a minute. Thermal transfer overprints can carry out printing at variable speeds in different formats with a variety of data. In addition, thermal transfer overprints offer various advantages, such as economical solutions, low cost of printing variable messages with intermittent and continuous printing capabilities, etc. The digital technique used to print documents, dates, codes and information on lightweight, flexible packaging materials used in the manufacture of packaging goods such as films, pouches and labels is thermal transfer overprinting or TTO. Thus the factors mentioned above are more likely to drive the growing market of TTO in the forecast period.

For instance, in November 2020, EDM CORPORATION participated in the INTERPHEX JAPAN 2020. The company showcased the new printer technology in the exhibition. This development is expected to help the company to improve the customer base in the future.

The growing demand for TTO for print packaging in different end-users such as food and beverages and pharmaceuticals is boosting the growth of the market in recent times

In small, medium and large corporations, thermal transfer barcode printing is commonly used to mark and ultimately track the delivered goods. In the retail industry, the implementation of barcode printing improves performance, increases employee productivity, increases profit margins by minimizing costs, and provides efficient customer service. The development of thermal transfer overprint has translated into higher productivity and flexibility for flexible packaging lines, thus improving its target efficiency among various end-users such as food and beverages and pharmaceuticals.

For instance, the retail industry is the largest end-user of thermal printing technology, which uses advanced point-of-sale POS printers designed primarily to distribute purchase receipts to customers. In the lowest but sufficient thermal grades, receipt records are direct thermal media. The business uses both manned check-out systems and increasingly automated self-check-out systems.

The growing application of color concentrates in the automotive segment for electric vehicle manufacturing is creating lucrative opportunities for the color concentrate market.

In recent times consumers prefer brands that are pursuing sustainability objectives. The research by Asia Pulp & Paper found that 56 percent of U.S. consumers want more sustainable packaging and 42 percent say they would pay more for it. Non-governmental organizations, such as Ceres and the World Resources Institute, are strong advocates for certain roles in the community and help customers and companies understand the need to alter certain practices to become more sustainable. The arrival of bio-renewable materials in packaging inks includes tall oil fatty acids from pine, cellulose from wood, and modified biodegradable products to make bio-renewable materials create booming opportunities for various TTO manufacturers. Eco-efficiency refers to sustainable materials management for packaging. As per the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM), bio-renewable ink is derived from tree, plant, insect, and animal materials, including solvents, gums, and resins waxes, oils and other polymer building blocks. Eco-friendly inks that use a high percentage of bio-renewable materials and printed on a substrate designed to be biodegradable can be considered compostable and non-toxic to the aquatic environment, thus offer minimal damage to the environment. Therefore the growing awareness among the consumer regarding sustainable materials and increasing adoption of eco-friendly technology is creating huge opportunities for the thermal transfer overprint market in the forecast period.

COVID-19 Impact Analysis on Thermal Transfer Overprint Market

The global thermal transfer overprint has shown a slight decline due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as several manufacturing plants were shut for months. Further several countries have restricted production activities during the covid-19 pandemic. The major lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak leads to suddenly dropping down consumers' interest towards purchasing any goods, and halt in transportation sectors has severely hampered the business of transfer overprint market due to disruption in the product's supply chain management.

The majority of businesses are shut down, and operations across several end-users of transfer overprint products such food and beverages and pharmaceuticals industries are also compromised, thus dropping the product's global demand in 2020.

Thermal Transfer Overprint Market Segment Analysis

The global thermal transfer overprint market is segmented based on type, film, printing, ribbon, application and region.

Barcodes show excellent performance in tracking the products and maintaining the product's data very easily and efficiently, making barcodes dominant in the market.

The global thermal transfer overprint market is bifurcated into barcodes, batch codes, data codes, and graphics in terms of printing. Out of the mentioned printing types, barcodes are more likely to build the largest thermal transfer overprint in recent times as barcodes show excellent performance in tracking the products and maintaining the product's data very easily and efficiently Barcodes dominate in the market. For barcode printing, thermal label printers are suitable because they generate precise and high-quality images with excellent edge definitions. Thermal printers are designed to print inside tight spaces and deliver thousands of inches of specific bar widths (x dimension). Barcodes offer various advantages such as are durable and easy to use, doesn't require ink, ribbon, or toner, cost lesser as compared to inkjet, laser, thermal transfer printers, and impact and are more eco-friendly since there is no disposal of ink ribbons; therefore leading to hold the largest market of thermal transfer overprint as a printing segment in the recent times.

Thermal Transfer Overprint Market Geographical Share

Increasing demand for LLDPE in the manufacturing of food packaging products and easy development of LLDPE films in the Asia-Pacific region

Asia-Pacific dominates the thermal transfer overprinting market in recent times as in China, the production and consumption of thermal transfer overprint is increasing in the region.  In addition to the increasing demand for LLDPE in the manufacturing of food packaging products and the easy development of LLDPE films, China is leading the Asia-Pacific industry's growth, thus building the thermal transfer overprint market. Increased use of thermal transfer overprinting boosts the thermal transfer overprinting market in retail applications such as smart packaging, inventory management, and warehousing, transportation, and logistics applications is another driver building the market of the product in the region. North America is expected to witness moderate growth during the next decade. In contrast, MEA is projected to witness average growth in the global thermal transfer over the printer market during the forecast period.

Thermal Transfer Overprint Companies and Competitive Landscape

The thermal transfer overprint market is highly competitive with the presence of local as well as global companies. Some of the key players contributing to the market's growth include Epson India Pvt Ltd, Videojet Technologies, Inc, MULTIVAC, Linx Printing Technologies, EDM CORPORATION, FlexPackPRO, ITW Diagraph, ID Technology LLC, EC-JET, Dover (Markem-Imaje) and among others.

The major players are adopting several growth strategies such as product launches, acquisitions, and collaborations, contributing to the growth of the thermal transfer overprint market globally. Key players are favoring product launch as the growth strategy to build their business.

• For instance, In October 2017, MULTIVAC came up with a new product- TTO 06 thermal transfer printer as the product is efficient and flexible and has maximum printing width is 32 mm. This development helped the company to build its growing business.

Videojet Technology

Overview: Videojet Technology is a world-leading developer of solutions for coding and labeling. Videojet encompasses all major technologies with more than 345,000 installed units worldwide, including continuous and thermal inkjet, laser, thermal transfer overprinting, and case coding.

Product Portfolio: The company has a product portfolio of thermal transfer overprint that includes:

• Videojet Thermal Transfer Overprint: The product is used to print manufacturing date, expiry date, Lot & batch number and preferred in industries such as the food, dairy, and snack industry for continuous or intermittent printing pouches. These TTO can be easily integrated with the packaging line for simple operations.

Key Development:

• In April 2019, Videojet Technologies, Inc. came up with two new printhead sizes in the Videojet DataFlex 6530 and 6330 series of its extended TTO products range. It will take less time for the machine to be fast, easy and virtually error-proof. This growth allows the business to boost its income.

Why Purchase the Report?

• Visualize the thermal transfer overprint market segmentation by type, film, printing, ribbon, application and highlight key commercial assets and players.
• Identify commercial opportunities in the thermal transfer overprint market by analyzing trends and co-development deals.
• Excel data sheet with thousands of data points of thermal transfer overprint market-level 4/5 segmentation.
• PDF report with the most relevant analysis cogently put together after exhaustive qualitative interviews and in-depth market study.
• Product mapping in excel for the key product of all major market players

The global thermal transfer overprint market report would provide access to an approx: 69 market data tables, 64 figures, and 180 pages.

Target Audience 2024

• Service Providers/ Buyers
• Industry Investors/Investment Bankers
• Education & Research Institutes
• Research Professionals
• Emerging Companies
• Manufacturers
• Distributors
• Supply chain companies