1. Current status Japanese printing industry
JAGAT(Japan Association of Graphic Arts Technology) has conducted their member survey in 2015 and the results are as follows.
・Sales volume decreased 0.1% to indicate some sluggishness comparing with past 3years recovery. Operating margin was 1.6% which is 2 years continued negative trend. But this is partly due to more active investment activities.
・Commercial and publication printing sector are facing decline, especially for publication printing which has been continuously decreasing for 13 years.
Package and specialty printing sectors are showing increase for 4 years. Active investment in this sector caused lower operating margin. Package printing sector is seeing more competition due to new entrants in this sector.
Business form sector is showing 3 consecutive years of increase in sales and also showing better operating margin than other sectors. This is due to the needs to adapt to digital printing and digital shift of market requirements in early stage and they were able to adapt to such shift in the market earlier.
・When comparing business result according to company size, smallest segment ( below 19 employees) is showing highest profit margin and this is due to their unique technologies or due to capturing unique market. The largest segment (over 300 employees) is also showing stable result. Company in between (30-49 employees and employees) are in difficult position and showing the lowest profit margin.

2. Current status Japanese printing industry (2)
・Capital-to-asset ratio is now over 40% and stability of companies are increasing. Due to government support for investment, aging equipments due to deferred investment, plus proliferation new technology like LED-UV drove more active investment. The main interest is not increasing capacity but improve efficiencies to lower operating cost.
・Average age of employee is 42.0 years in past 3 years. In past 10 years, the average age increased 2.1 years but this continued aging seems to be stabilized. (Average age of Japan is 46.1 vs India 27, Brazil 30.7, China 36.7, USA 37.6, UK 40.4)
・The average number of employee for this survey was 137 employees, average sales amount of a company was Yen 3.2B($32M).

3. Promotion of VOC warning device
VOC warning device has been jointly developed by JFPI and New Cosmos Electric Co., Ltd. The device, model XH-981G, is designed to provide warning if VOC level exceeds preset standard using unique hot wire type semiconductor sensor.
Since October 2014, the prototype of XH-981G was installed in several printing companies with offset presses and went through field testing. With the result and feedback from the field testing, XH-981G has been improved and commercial released since January 2016.
The features of the XH-981G are:
・With unique hot wire type semiconductor sensor, it can monitor VOC accurately.
・Once VOC level exceeds preset criteria, it will warn with buzzer and flash light.
・Small all-in-one design make it easy to install any place.
・Product life is 2 years and once its usage exceeds 2 years, it will notify to urge replacement by flash light.
The device was exhibited in IGAS2015 at the booth of Komori, Sakurai, Miyakoshi , Ryobi MHI and JFPI.

4. eBook trend in Japan
Finally eBook is showing certain momentum for continued growth. Some of main drivers for the growth are:
Monthly subscription for e-magazine is now getting popularity. Especially “d-magazine” provided by NTT Docomo is attracting 2.5M subscribers as of Dec The subscription is Yen400(Approx $4.00) per month which let you to read 160 titles of magazines.
Broader acceptance for “e-comic” including free version to attract more audiences. Line Manga 10M, comico 10M, Mangabox 9M, Shonen Jump+ 4.5M subscribers
More active attitude for publishers to issue eBook version simultaneously with book.
Unit: $M
eMagazine
eBook