#codingandmarking

The global coding and marking market is expanding with consistent momentum across industries that depend on product identification, traceability, and regulatory compliance. Valued at USD 6.66 billion in 2024, it is projected to reach USD 9.53 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 6.16%. This growth is being driven by a powerful combination of tightening regulatory requirements, accelerating digital transformation across manufacturing, rising consumer demand for product transparency, and continuous innovation in printing and marking technology.

Coding and marking solutions serve a function that is fundamental to modern commerce and manufacturing. Every product that moves through a supply chain, from a pharmaceutical blister pack to a bottled beverage to an automotive component, requires accurate, durable, and compliant identification. As supply chains have grown more complex, regulations have become more stringent, and consumer expectations around product authenticity and traceability have risen, the demand for reliable, high-speed, and increasingly intelligent coding and marking systems has grown in direct proportion.

The market encompasses a broad and evolving range of technologies. Continuous Inkjet printing currently holds the largest technology share, valued for its speed, versatility, and relatively low cost of ownership. Thermal Inkjet, Laser, and Thermal Transfer Overprinting technologies are all gaining significant ground as application requirements in sectors like healthcare, electronics, and flexible packaging drive demand for solutions that standard CIJ cannot optimally address. The market's technology diversity reflects the diversity of the industries it serves and the wide range of surfaces, substrates, production speeds, and regulatory environments within which coding and marking solutions must operate.

Know More: Coding and Marking Market - Global Outlook & Forecast 2025-2030

Continuous Inkjet Leads the Technology Market

Continuous inkjet technology holds approximately 40% of the global coding and marking market share in 2024, making it the dominant technology by a significant margin. CIJ's combination of low cost of ownership, operational speed, material versatility, and minimal maintenance requirements have made it the default choice for high-volume production environments across food and beverage, consumer goods, and general industrial manufacturing. The inks used in CIJ systems are generally less expensive than alternatives, and the machines operate with high uptime even under demanding production conditions.

Innovation within the CIJ category is accelerating rather than slowing. Videojet's 1580+ CIJ Printer, launched in 2023 with Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, delivers consistent uptime and real-time performance assessment, directly supporting manufacturers' digital integration efforts. The Videojet 1880 CIJ Printer takes this further with a built-in vital sign monitoring system, smart alerts, automated troubleshooting, and on-demand remote technical support that makes proactive maintenance genuinely practical at scale. Domino Printing Sciences' Ax-Series CIJ printer adds integrated sensors for predictive diagnostics, automated system monitoring, and cloud platform connectivity through Domino Cloud, representing the direction the entire CIJ category is moving as Industry 4.0 connectivity becomes a standard expectation rather than a premium feature.

Laser Technology Is Growing Fastest

While CIJ dominates current market share, laser marking technology is growing at the highest CAGR within the market, approximately 7.5% during the forecast period. The driving force behind this growth is the combination of permanence, precision, and versatility that laser marking offers across the industries where product traceability and anti-counterfeiting requirements are most stringent. Automotive, healthcare, electronics, aerospace, and semiconductor manufacturing are all increasing their adoption of laser marking for applications including permanent component serialization, regulatory compliance marking, and high-resolution 2D barcode printing.

Markem-Imaje's UV500 Laser System, which uses ultraviolet laser technology to mark challenging materials including delicate thin mono films and various thermoplastics, illustrates how laser technology is extending into sustainability-aligned packaging applications that conventional marking systems cannot address effectively. The development of femtosecond lasers that mark surfaces without causing thermal damage is opening entirely new application categories in delicate and precision-critical manufacturing environments. Electronics and semiconductor manufacturers are using laser marking for tracking and labeling components including capacitors, microchips, and circuit boards with the high-resolution accuracy that miniaturizing component sizes demand.

Food and Beverage Leads End-User Demand

The food and beverage industry is the largest end-user segment in the global coding and marking market in 2024. Stringent regulatory requirements mandate that critical information including ingredient listings, allergen warnings, expiration dates, and batch codes be accurately printed on all product packaging before market entry. The food production environment also demands coding and marking solutions that are hygienic, resistant to cleaning chemicals, and capable of operating reliably at high production speeds without compromising print quality or creating contamination risks.

Sustainability is an increasingly important dimension of food packaging coding, with companies adopting eco-friendly and recyclable packaging materials that require compatible marking technologies. The growing demand for organic and natural dyes in food packaging aligns with this trend, pushing coding and marking solution providers to develop ink formulations that meet both performance and environmental standards simultaneously.

APAC Dominates the Global Market

The Asia-Pacific region holds the largest share of the global coding and marking market, accounting for over 31% of revenue in 2024. Rapid industrialization, strict regulatory framework development, and rising demand for packaged food, beverages, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals across the region are driving strong and sustained market growth. China is the largest individual market within APAC, with its combination of manufacturing scale, export-oriented production, and increasingly stringent domestic product safety regulations creating enormous ongoing demand for high-performance coding and marking solutions. North America follows closely, with e-commerce growth driving demand for high-speed CIJ and laser systems, while Germany anchors the European market through its strong food and beverage, automotive, and pharmaceutical manufacturing base.

The global coding and marking equipment market has witnessed significant transformations over the last decade, largely due to various innovations, regulatory standard modifications, growth of end-user industries, integration of automation in production, and the influx of vendors across geographies. Coding & marking solutions are handy for several reasons, such as product tracking & traceability, identification, and tackling counterfeiting. With the growth across end-user industries such as F&B, healthcare, chemicals & construction, electrical & electronics, and automotive, the increase in product proliferation has become common. This has further led to managing a diverse inventory range in the best possible manner.

The global coding and marking equipment market is growing at a steady pace worldwide. The CIJ technology dominated the market in 2021. Nevertheless, the increased popularity of TIJ and laser technologies give tough competition to CIJ technology. Also, laser and TIJ are competing worldwide.