In the recently released debut edition of Radar, FINAT's new member-exclusive half-yearly publication, more than 50 label converters from every European region participated in a detailed survey focusing on sales and profit trends, production data and capital equipment procurement trends.
In the Converter Survey, participants were asked to predict revenue growth over the course of the next six months for each major end-use sector they serve (food, beverage, pharmaceuticals, consumer durables, etc), in addition to providing their companies' turnover growth for 2013.
In parallel to this approach, the Radar Brand-Owner Survey asked companies to project growth and/or contraction rates for their label purchases over the next year. The average growth rates from both converters and brand-owners that were surveyed for the first edition of the report were:
Average Converter Turnover Growth, 2013 All of Europe - 5.15%
Average Converter Projected Turnover Growth per End-Use Category, 2014 - 3.08%
Average Brand-Owner Projected Label Procurement Volume Increase, 2014 - 3.61%
In addition, more than 50% of the brand-owners indicated that, within the next 12 months, they were seriously considering re-sourcing some, or all, of the labels currently sourced from Western Europe, from other regions.
At FINAT's recent congress in Monaco, Jules Lejeune documented labelstock demand in Europe for 1996 to 2013 showing that market volume had doubled in the last one and a half decade, to just over 6 billion m2. In 2013, overall demand grew by 3.5% over the prior year - an increase mostly achieved in the second half of the year, with non-paper (film) labelstocks growing at 5.9% and paper stocks at 3.3%
Regionally, the countries to the east of Europe evidenced the greatest growth in 2013 over 2012, at 6.9%, with all other regions showing modest growth. The outlook for 2014 is positive, based on Q1 year-on-year results, both in terms of material grades and by region.
www.finat.com
