Demands on Personalized Packaging Will Drive up the 3D Printed Packaging Market in China

While the cost of 3D printed packaging is high, many consumers of luxury products and high-value gifts are willing to pay the additional costs for personalized packaging designs, which will lead to a significant growth of the 3D printed packaging market in China in the next few years.

Innova Research delivered a keynote speech on the "2015 Personal Care Technology Summit", one of the largest technology oriented Chinese personal care events. Over 500 delegates attended the summit on 25th-26th June 2015 in Shanghai. The keynote, "China's 3D Printing Market and 3D Printed Packaging" received strong attentions from the delegates from leading multinational and Chinese personal care and packaging companies on the event.

3D printing packaging is still at its infant stage in China, just as it is in the global packaging market. Currently, 3D printers were only utilized by a few packaging companies, such as perfume bottle makers, to make prototypes for their new designs before scaling up production, while the usage of 3D printers to directly produce the end packaging products intended for consumers is rare. This is due to the drawbacks of 3D printed packaging, including higher costs, longer production time, and the limited choices of 3D printing materials.

At this stage, the costs of 3D printed packaging is much higher than that of the ones mass produced traditionally, mainly due to the high 3D printing material costs and the economy of scale achieved by the traditional production processes. On the other hand, the average production time per product is much longer, as 3D printing is a time consuming process compared with the traditional production approach. Finally, it is difficult for 3D printers to produce on important packaging materials, such as glass.

Nevertheless, Innova Research forecast that the Chinese 3Dprinted packaging market will grow significantly in the next few years. This is mainly driven by the rapidly growing demands on personalized packaging in China. Despite the above mentioned drawbacks, 3D printers are ideal tools to directly produce personalized packaging for gifts and other high-value consumer productions in small batches, as Richard Jun Li, Vice President of Innova Research commented in the keynote:" While the cost of 3D printed packaging is high, many consumers of luxury products and high-value gifts are willing to pay the additional costs for personalized packaging designs, which will lead to a significant growth of the 3D printed packaging market in China in the next few years."

About Innova Research

Innova Research is a market research and consulting firm focusing on emerging technologies. With the combination of both technology and market research experts, we offer world-class market and technology intelligences.  Driven by primary research, Innova Research’s market intelligence reports and consulting service help our clients to make right strategic and investment decisions in the fast-changing technology world.  Visit www.innovaresearchinc.com for more information.

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