By: Barry Hasleham - Key Account Manager, Altron Document Solutions 

Every few years, someone declares that print is dead, until print proves them wrong. The question worth asking is not whether it will survive, but why it keeps defying the forecast, what that means for businesses still relying on it, and how to develop necessary skills in an artificial intelligence (AI) era. 

Consider the upcoming Local Government Elections. South Africa has 27.7 million registered voters, each requiring at least two ballot papers – and that excludes more than ten million eligible voters yet to register. No algorithm delivers that. No app puts a physical ballot in a citizen’s hand. When democratic participation is on the line, print is not a legacy system. 

This is not an argument against digital. It is an argument for clarity. The most useful question any business leader can ask is not “print or digital?” but “which tool is right for this job?.” 

And, that tool could well turn out to be a printer. There is a need for personalised communication, with Gartner finding that customers are 1.8 times more likely to pay a premium and 3.7 times more likely to purchase more than intended when they feel their experience is personalised. Continuous feed inkjet printing can play a key role in that as it enables companies to talk directly to consumer in a one-on-one way without the massive costs or delays of traditional printing. This makes business sense because it’s easier to keep a customer, and add to the top and bottom lines, than find new ones. 

A pharmaceutical company printing legally required product labels, a manufacturer tracking aerospace components, and fast-moving consumer goods companies that need to clearly label goods with key – and legally required – information such as expiry dates, batch numbers, and allergen information on plastic wrappers, metal cans, and glass bottles. 

None of these companies are clinging to the past but rather using print where it is required, which is a question Sweden asked itself in 2024, when it invested €104 million to reintroduce printed textbooks in schools, reversing a fifteen-year push toward digital-only classrooms. Excessive screen time was impairing reading comprehension, focus, and writing skills. Offering both produced better outcomes than either alone. 

Print increasingly works alongside digital channels, with South African businesses using QR codes, barcodes and hybrid printtoonline experiences – marketing material that sends a consumer to a digital asset such as a website – to enhance engagement and trackability. 

The sweet spot nobody told you about 

While companies don’t need to take an all-or-nothing position on the need for printing, there are critical questions to be asked about the type of printer that should be implemented because this decision affects company’s abilities to be competitive at the same time as being cost-effective. 

Toner-based digital machines are cost-effective at lower volumes, while traditional offset litho presses become efficient at high volumes, but demand skilled operators, expensive aluminium plates, lengthy make-ready times, and a production floor built around their considerable footprint.  

Continuous feed inkjet is a solution that fills the gaps that exists between toner and offset technologies. Running off a paper roll at up to 150 metres per minute, around the clock, these presses require significantly less setup time and far less specialised labour.  

And, in a world where sustainability expectations are rising, with more organisations choosing recycled materials, certified papers and lowerwaste print processes have become  part of their procurement criteria. 

Yet, there is still a persistent, incorrect, perception that inkjet means poor quality – largely a legacy of where the technology was a decade ago. The most significant advances have not come from the presses themselves but from the ink.  

Modern production inkjet inks contain bonding agents that adhere to both coated and uncoated substrates, drying almost instantaneously through near-infrared technology that targets the ink rather than the paper. The result is vivid, consistent colour output that, in direct comparisons, matches or exceeds offset litho quality on the same jobs. 

Africa’s moment is now 

Western Europe and North America adopted production inkjet early and have largely plateaued. Growth is moving into developing markets. Installing a multi-tonne offset press in Africa brings substantial logistics, maintenance complexity, and a real skills challenge — the apprenticeship pipeline that once produced qualified machine minders has largely disappeared. A technology requiring less specialised labour, a smaller footprint, and simpler servicing addresses several of those constraints at once. 

The demand is evident in several sector, including religious publishing, educational printing, government work, and consumer-facing sectors. Precedence Research values the global continuous feed inkjet market at $838.26 billion, projecting growth to $1,190.47 billion by 2035, a compound annual rate of 3.57% that is being driven by the need for high-speed, high-volume, personalised production at scale. 

What AI adds and what it takes away 

AI integrates meaningfully into these workflows as it detects misfiring jets before they stop a press mid-run, batches jobs intelligently, and provides inline quality inspection that stores proof of every print. For transactional environments where accuracy is a legal requirement, that last capability matters considerably. 

There is, however, an uncomfortable counterpoint in that AI tools that generate design assets with ease have accelerated a decline in print literacy among the people preparing files. The case for rebuilding that expertise – through training or structured learning – is arguably as pressing as any hardware investment. 

The question for executives is not whether to print as many sectors will not go paperless any time soon. The question is whether the technology producing that print is fit for the volume, the quality, and the economics the business actually requires. The question is also whether we will continue to invest in the required skills to make this a local growth sector.