It is for sure China will become another huge market for flexo printing. According to statistic data, flexo printing covers 70% of printing market in the US and 50% in Western Europe. However, in China this number is only 15%. 

From the year 2016, Chinese government released new policy to encourage development and application of flexo printing and require to reduce gravure printing market share gradually, as flexo printing can use water based ink, which is more environment friendly.

Nowadays, flexo printing has already being used in many industry such as corrugated box, beverage packaging, label etc. For corrugated box printing, over 90% box are printed by flexo press, including pre-printing and post printing. Beverage printing is another big market for flexo press. Due to the advantage like environment and human health friendly, water based ink are widely used in beverage printing in China. For flexo press, now can run as fast as 450m/min to 600m/min (see DH-ROC gearless flexo machine). In label industry, flexo mainly compete with letterpress printing and now is gradually replace it. The next huge market in China for flexo printing will be flexible packaging, which is now be dominated by gravure printing.  Flexo press is also used in book printing, thin-film capacitor printing etc. but these are relatively small industry. 

Regarding flexo printing machine, we see much more modular type rather than CI type. According to report, untile 30th, June, 2016 there are around 2016 modular flexo press installed in China. However, for CI flexo press the number is lower than 300.

There is now doubt flexo printing will grow dramatically in the next few years in China. Some professionals believe flexible packaging and folding carton will be the next target. In order to realize it, now industry is focusing on how to achieve high resolution (150lpi or above) to replace gravure and offset printing. Some progress have been made but still need time to be promoted to the entire industry.