Insee Première · July 2026 · n° 2122

Printing businesses since 2010: output has fallen, usage patterns have changed 

In France, some 16,000 printing businesses employed 38,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in 2023. The sector was highly fragmented and has lost around 2,000 enterprises over eight years. It included no large enterprises and consisted mainly of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and microenterprises, which employed 53% and 23% of the workforce, respectively.

Commercial printed materials such as posters, catalogues and labels accounted for 45% of production by value. From 2010 to 2023, the volume of printed products fell by around 30%. Their price declined until 2020, when the entire industry experienced an unprecedented slump in activity. After 2020, prices for printed products rose significantly, due to increasing costs.

From 2010 to 2023, the volume of printed newspapers fell by nearly half, amid a massive shift towards online written news consumption. Book printing fared much better, with a decline limited to 3%. Security printing (postage stamps, banknotes, identity documents, etc.) grew by 18% in volume, driven by innovation and the incorporation of new security features. The trade deficit for printed products widened. In 2023, exports covered 51% of imports, down twenty percentage points from 2010.