The growth of national economy, the change of consumer packaging concept and technological innovation have brought great development to China's self-adhesive label market. At present, the self-adhesive label market in China is growing at an annual rate of 20%, which is far higher than the average growth rate of 7%~9% of the national economy, and also far higher than the average growth rate of 5%~6% of the self-adhesive label market in European and American countries. Although the growth rate is amazing, compared with the mature self-adhesive label market in developed countries, the annual per capita use of self-adhesive labels in China is only 0.5~0.6 square meters, compared with the annual per capita use of more than 10 square meters in Europe and the United States (17~18 square meters in the United States), China's self-adhesive label market still has much room for growth and development potential. The following describes the application and development of self-adhesive labels from various industries.

Pharmaceutical industry

The growth of life expectancy and the development of medical science and technology have made the pharmaceutical industry an everlasting sunrise industry. Especially after SARS, people's awareness of health care has been further enhanced and more health care products have been produced, which further accelerated the development of the pharmaceutical industry; OTC drugs are placed on the shelves, making the aesthetic requirements of label printing for various pharmaceutical products higher; At the same time, the national regulatory measures for the pharmaceutical industry, such as the implementation of GMP certification, have prompted the pharmaceutical industry to more standardized packaging requirements. The previous wet adhesive label will be replaced by self-adhesive labels due to various shortcomings. Moreover, the growth of the packaging form of pharmaceutical bottles and the wide use of automatic labeling form will make self-adhesive labels have an absolute advantage in the industry. In North American pharmaceutical industry, self-adhesive labels account for 89% of the label market, and so will the development trend of self-adhesive labels in Chinese pharmaceutical industry.

At present, the pharmaceutical industry mainly uses self-adhesive materials with coated paper and mirror coated paper as the surface material and Grating base paper, which requires clear printing patterns and concise characters, especially for the use of descriptive text printing. Since drugs have high requirements for safety and hygiene, there should be no glue overflow, so as not to cause the drug itself to adhere to the dust in the air. Therefore, it is necessary to choose a non drying adhesive material with more uniform glue coating and better surface material adaptability. In addition, as more pharmaceutical factories use automatic labeling, medical labels widely use the adhesive materials of Grating base paper with good tensile strength and die-cutting performance to meet the requirements of high-speed automatic labeling.

Supermarket logistics industry

With the rapid development of China's retail industry, foreign retail giants have entered China one after another, and domestic supermarkets have sprung up like mushrooms. In 2004, the total number of retail stores of the top 100 chain supermarkets in China reached more than 25000, an increase of more than 40%, and the demand for thermal labels in major supermarkets will only increase. In addition, in the future, enterprises will pay more attention to logistics control to save costs and improve efficiency, and need to use heat transfer barcode labels to control production management, inventory management, quality tracking, etc. Therefore, variable information print tags will be used more widely.

Thermal labels are mainly used in electronic scales in supermarkets. The surface coating on the surface material is directly contacted with the heating probe, which turns black due to chemical reaction when heated, thus displaying the text to be printed. The thermal transfer label is mainly used for printing various information and barcode in logistics. The probe of the printer transfers the ink on the ribbon to the surface material through temperature and pressure to realize information transfer. Therefore, thermal label printing is a chemical change, and information is difficult to be stored for a long time or exposed to sunlight; The thermal transfer label printing is a physical change, which can better preserve information in the logistics process.

Electronics industry

With the development of the national economy and the improvement of people's living standards, China's electronic industry has been developing at a fast speed every year. The popularity of household appliances, the emergence and development of mobile phones, computers and various innovative electronic products have brought a broader market and more application fields to electronic labels. Electronic product labels also bring new product development to the adhesive label industry with their high requirements and diversity of application fields, It has brought huge development space.

The self-adhesive materials used in the electronic industry are mainly durable film materials, usually PET films, which are required to have strong high temperature resistance (usually above 160 ℃). Corrosion resistance, and UL certification in the United States is required to ensure its safety.

Tyre industry

The rapid development of the automobile industry in recent years has also driven the development of its related industries. The average annual growth rate of 15% has also driven the increase of tire production. From the perspective of the proportion of 1:5 of the number of automobiles and tires, the average new demand for tires each year is more than 20 million, and the annual export volume is also rising. As Preston, Michelin, Goodyear, Jiatong and others continue to expand their business and export quota in China, the application prospect of adhesive labels in the tire market is broad.

At present, there are three main forms of tire packaging in China: 1. professional tire labels; 2. Wrap with high-grade adhesive tape and then stick ordinary adhesive label; 3. Low grade woven bag packaging without adhesive label. The professional tire label is mainly directly attached to the surface of the bare tire. The surface material is mostly paper coated. The adhesive needs to have high fluidity and viscosity, usually hot melt adhesive products, which are required to be able to fully contact with the tire surface to give play to its viscosity. In addition, an aluminized layer will be added between the surface material and the adhesive to better control the highly mobile adhesive, so that it will not spill onto the surface material to stain the text information on the surface. With the improvement of the overall level of the tire market, professional tire labels will be used more widely.

Lubricant industry

China has surpassed Russia as the world's second largest consumer of lubricating oil, with an annual output of more than 4 million tons. With the development of the automobile industry, more and more foreign brands have entered China, and the high-end lubricant market has been expanding, thus forming a pattern of domestic and foreign brands competing for the high-end market. At present, there are four main specifications of lubricating oil: 1L, 4L, 20L and 200L. Paper labels are mostly used on the packaging drums. A few high-end products use film labels. In addition, some use in mold labels and heat transfer technology.

From the perspective of development trend, due to the large area of the oil drum label, the rough surface of the oil drum and the relatively poor storage environment, the use of paper labels is prone to produce various problems. Thin film materials are mostly used as the first choice abroad. Film labels can better overcome the problem of label warping caused by the lack of flexibility of paper labels. In China, due to cost considerations, paper labels will still be widely used. Due to the unique advantages of in mold labels, that is, strong integrity, no warping, wrinkling and falling off, and the elimination of labeling process, it is very suitable for the lubricating oil industry. This kind of packaging form that does not need to change the shape frequently (the specifications of oil drums are basically fixed) is of great interest to the majority of lubricating oil enterprises, and will have a large space for development in the future.

Food industry

Compared with the above mentioned industries, the application proportion of self-adhesive labels in the food industry is small. In the mature foreign market, among various forms of labels in the food industry, the proportion of self-adhesive labels is about 20%, mainly wet labels, accounting for 68%. However, on some high-end products, adhesive labels have also been accepted and used, especially on some chocolate and candy packaging bottles. Adhesive labels are widely used as a good means to highlight shelf effect. At present, the proportion of self-adhesive labels used in the food industry is very small in China, which also brings a large space for the growth of self-adhesive labels in the food industry.

At present, the self-adhesive labels used in the domestic food industry are mainly paper, and some food products use aluminum foil or PET materials with bright silver effect to show a certain gorgeous effect, so as to increase their shelf effect and high quality.

Beverage industry

Like the food industry, the beverage industry has a very low share of self-adhesive labels. In mature foreign markets, self-adhesive labels account for about 5%. Low market share also breeds high growth space. At present, in China, juice products and high-end beer have the most opportunities to apply self-adhesive labels in the beverage industry. Many high-end juices use bright PP labels, which not only show a colorful appearance, but also are suitable for low-temperature storage. Beer, as the main growth point of self-adhesive label in the beverage industry in the future, is being paid attention to by more insiders. In 2003, China has surpassed the United States and become the world's largest beer producer, and all the top five foreign beer giants have entered China. They have brought global packaging technology. They use fully transparent self-adhesive labels for high-end small bottles of beer, showing the high-end feeling of "transparent without labels" to meet the needs of the market.

The self-adhesive label materials for recyclable bottles are also being intensively researched and developed. It is believed that in the near future, the beverage market will bring great development opportunities for self-adhesive labels.

Clothing industry

In foreign countries, many brands of clothing are marked with sticker prices, such as Levis jeans, G2000 formal clothes, etc. With the increase of domestic clothing exports (especially Hong Kong SAR), the application of self-adhesive labels in the clothing industry has gradually been accepted. Its main advantage is that it can give people a sense of high-end neatness and integration with high-end clothing, which not only reflects the high-end effect, but also is convenient for consumers to view, so it is adopted by many well-known brands of clothing.

The main application requirements of clothing labels are good removability, which can be completely removed from the clothing surface without leaving any residual glue, and can not damage the fibers on the clothing surface. In addition, because clothing labels are mostly used for export clothing, the labels should be able to withstand the test of high temperature and humidity at sea, and the corresponding tests should be conducted in advance.

The application scope of adhesive labels is far beyond the above mentioned aspects. In short, adhesive labels have penetrated into various industries and fields. In China, a land of rapid development and vitality, self-adhesive labels will have greater development in various industries with its unique advantages. It is also believed that self-adhesive labels will be applied to more and newer fields.