Annual Report 2024: Capex shifted from “more capacity” to “replacing steps”
Even before the full-year totals lock in, the *quality* of capex and restructuring is readable. In 2024, which steps did print companies pull capital and people toward—and which ones did they step away from?
If you want to understand Japan’s domestic print market in 2024, start less with “how demand moved” and more with “where the machines went.” It was a year when investments leaned not toward new lines for higher output, but toward reshaping existing plants into a different kind of capacity. Even while the annual figures are not fully extractable, putting four yardsticks—equipment, paper, financial results, and exits—into one frame makes the next move clearer.
Gathered with AI. Thought through on the shop floor. Written for the future of print.
BPJ WIRE: stories selected and drafted by the BPJ desk from world news, fact-checked against the source ledger — published alongside the editor's own picks.
Coverage: 2024 · Written: Aug 16, 2026. Market reports are written after official statistics for the period are released. US BLS indexes include preliminary values, which may be revised for up to four months.
Translated from Japanese by AI. The Japanese original is authoritative.
At 13:30 on June 30, 2025, e-Stat published the 2024 annual report for “Printing, platemaking, bookbinding and paper converting machinery.” On the other hand, as of now, the annual and half-year totals cannot be confirmed from e-Stat’s API or CSV, and verifying annual-report values requires another method. That contradiction—“the annual report is out, but we don’t have numbers in a form we can use for plant investment decisions”—hits hardest for print companies that actu…
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