Sponsored by SPGPrints
Garrett Forde, CEO, SPGPrints talks to WTiN about the future of the digital textile printing industry, plans for ITMA Asia and overcoming industry challenges.
The digital textile printing industry continues to mature, but despite a difficult market backdrop, innovation is still driving the industry forward. SPGPrints, a key player within the digital textile printing (and rotary screen printing) market, is one such company that is continuing to develop its technology to meet the ever-changing needs of the industry.
Garrett Forde, SPGPrints CEO, notes that there are two key areas of innovation leading development in the industry. The first of these, he says, is print heads. “Regarding hardware, electronics and labour, the digital printers will always be cheaper in China, for [European, American and Japanese] manufacturers to compete they need to focus on innovation. There are a few innovative components driving cost and performance with real differentiators, and the main one of these is print heads.”
Forde continues: “Print head manufacturers have been doing extremely well, such as Kyocera, Epson and Fuji, but they're not really under a lot of cost-competitive pressure, but they soon will be.” He theorises that there will be innovations that make them more affordable and cheaper, but these innovations will also have higher performance properties.
“We were pioneers in the past using 1200 DPI print heads from Fuji and many in the industry thought that was overkill,” he adds. “But now, if you look at recent trends in China, 1200 DPI Fuji heads are becoming the standard in very high precision and high-volume business.”
However, he notes that the ‘next big thing’ in digital textile printing is innovative and intelligent software and using software as a key differentiator. Forde explains that software performance will improve through constant updates, iterations and adoption of intelligence.
SPGPrints’ printing software, Archer+, is designed to increase printing accuracy and minimise downtime. Forde says: “Archer+ is our ‘machine learning’ way to spot problems. If we spot issues in the pattern, we can adjust the print heads to mitigate that problem.” Forde adds that this will be the route forward, the industry’s technology becoming much more self-intelligent with less human guidance and intervention required.
At the moment, he says: “Archer+ still needs humans to guide it, but soon I think artificial intelligence (AI) will be able to spot patterns, spot deviations in patterns, and adjust the print speed and the print heads. AI will have a big role in the future.”
Beyond machinery and its software, Forde emphasises the importance of holistic workflow software: “The printer is just one part of the whole chain,” he says, noting that SPGPrints is “working hard to ensure that its software is compatible with workflow software.” He continues: “Designing, ordering, instigating, running prints and running samples will all be highly automated between various pieces of equipment in a textile printer’s environment.” The technology he sees will be AI-enabled and much more intelligent, with a better graphical user interface.
Garrett Forde, CEO, SPGPrints
ITMA Singapore
SPGPrints will be showcasing its full portfolio of products and innovations, including its Archer+ technology, at ITMA Singapore from 28-31 October 2025. A primary focus will on introducing a new range of digital printers, new models of premium laser engravers and its new generation rotary printing machines; narrow width rotary printer Teak 1.1 and wider width rotary printer Eucalyptus.
He says there are still parts of the world where the rotary screen-printing business is doing extremely well, despite the general move towards digital. As such, SPGPrints will continue to innovate in this area, particularly around enhanced automation, software, features and benefits.
Challenges
The drive to keep innovating is paramount in this challenging time for the digital textile printing sector and the textile industry on a wider scale. Although there are areas of growth in the digital textile printing sector, the industry is struggling. According to data from WTiN, the digital textile printing market is forecasted to achieve a CAGR of just 3% between 2025 and 2030, suggesting the market is maturing.
Forde says that he sees a number of trends impacting the industry. The first is that on a global level, current fashion trends are dominated by solid colours rather than prints. However, the fashion industry works in cycles, and Forde expects us to see a return to a more balanced solid colour-print ratio in the next year.
Secondly, China’s focus on digital textile printing is ever-growing, with dominant technology players in the Chinese market now developing impressive machines on an industrial scale. Forde says: “The demand for conventional printing in China has almost entirely dried up. Everybody is switching to digital even before there is a demand. Print houses are getting ready, so digital equipment sales in China are at an all-time high.”
This is during a period of economic uncertainty for the Chinese economy, exacerbated by geopolitics, such as US tariffs. Forde continues: “This whole tariff uncertainty has put a lot of investments, especially export business, on hold. The whole market worldwide is in a little bit of a pause, but the one thing that remains a constant is China's strategic intent to move almost entirely digital.”
Competition from China is a huge challenge for European OEMs as the technology continues to advance. However, Forde notes that SPGPrints excels in its globally dispersed support teams that provide a local service. Europeans who have many decades of experience in the industry often have better innovation cycles and a closer connection with customers.”
In a distressed market, it is easy for customers to go with cheaper technology, so Europeans need to re-establish their added value to justify a premium. Forde notes that innovation cycles are key, as is a “proven track record of reliability, a local language speaking service and compatible inks”. He adds: “We must become a solutions provider; we have to innovate at a higher pace and bring our knowledge into the intelligence of the machines in a faster way. My philosophy is that the only true sustainable way counter to commoditisation is innovation.”
However, Forde acknowledges that European OEMs must be prepared to address their costs, too.
Partnerships in China are important. He says: “You won’t be able to have a cost-competitive footprint if, for example, you depend entirely on a location in Europe. Having solid partnerships and production in Asia, especially China, is paramount.”
Sustainability
Sustainable production and initiatives are another way in which European OEMs can set themselves apart. Forde says: “We put sustainability at the core of our company and everything we do. We're constantly looking at CO2 reduction and water use reduction.”
All SPGPrints’ inks are Oeko-Tex certified, but Forde says the company also encourages its customers to consider the switch to digital because “the process in itself has a better environmental footprint than screen-printing.” He adds: “This is particularly true with the move towards pigment inks, which use less water and are better for the environment.”
However, he recognises that despite the huge cost of fast fashion to the environment, the textile & apparel industry continues to encourage consumer demand. Yet with a growing population, Forde feels that responsible sustainable clothing and less fashion driven obsolescence are important.
He says that consumers should be encouraged to “buy textile clothing that are higher quality, more robust and long lasting than the clothing being pushed by “fast fashion”. How that translates to SPGPrints, for example, is producing an ink that has a superior wash-fastness. “So, when you keep it for years, it still looks fantastic,” he says. “But if people are going to go cheap and buy a throwaway product, the material and consumables used to colour it are going to be cheap too. Because of the low price point, print service providers (PSPs) won’t use the more expensive dyes or inks that won’t fade. After a couple of washes, the consumer will need to buy a new one.” And so, this negative cycle goes on.
Forde continues: “You can innovate around that, but I think the business model of just encouraging people to consume, and forcing artificial ‘fashion driven’ obsolescence, is not healthy.” In the end, he says, consumers will vote with their feet and buy into the areas they want to support. “I have a stronger belief in consumer-driven behaviour to drive change rather than the change coming from the supply chain side.” He adds that guidelines can be created with regulations, but again they come from within the industry.
Having said that, regulations can and do play a positive role in improving the industry’s footprint, even if the goal posts are changing. Forde says that certifications are very important when it comes to pollution, cleanliness, use of resources, such as water and energy, but they’re acutely critical in locations where labour conditions are less favourable. “Unfortunately, regulations are required to force a transition,” Forde says. And while he would prefer more companies in the supply chain to step up and improve their Environmental Social Governance (ESGs), he notes many are being “squeezed by the big players”. He adds: “The big brands have all the authority and power, and the chain is so squeezed on every penny that they don't have the luxury to step up and do something more responsible for the planet. It really needs to start with the chain, and the chain is driven by the consumer [through supporting the big brands].”
Future
In terms of market development, Forde sees a strategic shakeout whereby the digital textile printing sector will further consolidate. The European market has already experienced this with Epson’s acquisition of Robustelli, and more recently, Durst’s purchase of Aleph, but Forde sees it happening in the Chinese market, too. There are currently a lot of players in China’s digital textile printing space, but “in the end, we’re going to have the ‘top few’,” Forde explains. And even in the European market, he says, “some will stick it out and stay, some will either diversify, give up the ghost or be acquired.”
For many in the market, it’s a very interesting and challenging time. Forde notes that SPGPrints has been very fortunate in that it had already diversified with production locations in China and India, and developed various global partnerships that it has nurtured over the last five or six years. As a result, Forde says, SPGPrints is “a little bit more immune to that shift to Asia”.
Meanwhile, Forde and his team have already prepared for the next potential market development, which may have accelerated in the wake of Trump’s tariffs. “We’re located in Pakistan, India, Turkey and Latin America, so we’re ready for any possible geopolitical shift away from China. We have already established ourselves in other key non-textile printing markets, so it has been easier for us to handle some of the recent headwinds. For other companies with no footprint in Asia, it has been quite a tough period.”
ITMA Singapore is the next exciting step for SPGPrints. For more information,
visit: SPGPrints | Home.
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