Why India Stands Out as a Rare Growth Engine for the Global Printing Industry

Brother International India's managing director Alok Nigam, in a published interview with Digital Terminal, frames India as one of the few printing markets globally still on a genuine growth trajectory, with the company's local business having grown twenty-one times over nineteen years. The statement, carried by Digital Terminal on August 10, sits alongside separate market data from Fact.MR indicating continued expansion in adjacent digital print segments through 2036.

Hardware footprint and stated targets

According to the interview, Brother India is targeting an ink tank market share of approximately 25% by 2026, up from a current baseline of around 8%. The laser category is described as a core strength, concentrated in corporate and government segments. Ink tank and laser together are positioned as the primary growth engines, with incremental demand sourced from small and medium businesses, home offices, and Tier 2 and Tier 3 city markets. The trajectory is attributed to sustained investment in product innovation, service reliability, and a channel ecosystem tuned to local procurement patterns. The framing is deliberate: India is positioned as a strategic growth market rather than a saturated replacement cycle.

Connected printing, new SKUs, and adjacent market data

The disclosed product roadmap is built around three priorities: expanding connected and intelligent printing, deepening the labelling portfolio, and tailoring devices to Indian business workflows. The company states it has recently introduced 17 new laser and LED printers and 6 new ink tank printers, each positioned around affordability, wireless connectivity, and lower running costs. Software-side investment targets AI-driven personalization, predictive insights across print and workflow solutions, the Mobile Connect app, the professional labelling range, and Managed Print Services. The stated objective is to reduce device management overhead on the customer side.

Fact.MR's August 11 forecast for digital printing in flexible packaging places the segment at USD 10.2 billion in 2026, projected to reach USD 24.8 billion by 2036 at a 9.3% CAGR. Within that forecast, inkjet printing leads at 44% share, food packaging at 43% of application share, and plastic films at 39% of substrate share. Reference platforms cited include Fujifilm's water-based Jet Press FP790, launched March 2024, and SCREEN's water-based Truepress PAC 830F, which reached full-scale flexible packaging production at Chiyoda in July 2026.

Two additional items appear in the source feed without full text: WhatTheyThink's note on Duplo USA's planned presence at PRINTING United 2026, and openPR's item on a dental 3D printing market projected at a 16.0% CAGR. Both are recorded as market activity signals rather than analyzed in detail.

Relevance for digital newspaper workflows

For readers working with ePaper editions, PDF archives, or tablet-based newspaper layouts, the hardware layer matters less than the integration layer. The Brother India roadmap explicitly names cloud-enabled and mobile-first printing as priorities, with the Mobile Connect app positioned as the connective tissue between device and content. Across the 17 new laser and LED units and the 6 new ink tank SKUs, wireless connectivity is listed as a baseline feature, not a premium tier. The watch items: whether the stated 25% ink tank share target is met within the 2026 window, and whether the predictive-insight layer in the workflow stack reaches general availability on the same schedule.