China Newspaper Association's latest survey of 128 newspaper printing units puts 2025 print volume at 32.669 billion standard folios, down 5.76% year on year. The squeeze has reached the equipment market: the Dalian Property Exchange shows a package of four assets — GOSS presses, Mitsubishi web offset presses and a perfecting line — sold for just RMB 514,860 after six listing attempts. The mass exit of newspaper web offsets is no longer a forecast.
- Annual utilization of web offset presses in publishing has slipped below 45%, nearly 30 percentage points lower than in 2019;
- Listed assets typically sell as-is with buyers handling dismantling and removal within 30 days, leaving plenty of room to negotiate;
- Web presses and sheet-fed presses belong to different technology families, so full refurbishment rarely pays off — parts harvesting is the main exit;
- Sheet-fed offset volume is still projected to edge up at a 0.3% CAGR through 2029, with packaging and book work absorbing the capacity.
The Valuation Gap Behind Six Listings
GOSS and Mitsubishi web presses cost tens of millions of RMB when new; this package fetched just RMB 514,860. Terms were tough: the equipment sat inside a plant in Shenyang, and the buyer had to complete dismantling, rigging and transport within 30 days of payment, with no warranty on condition. The real cost lies in removal and recovery — the listing price is merely the admission ticket.
A Web Press Is Not a Bigger Sheet-fed Press
Take the Heidelberg Universal 75 newspaper press: its factory documentation runs to dozens of volumes covering the MEG reel stand PLC, Vogel KFG damping rollers, INTERBUS fieldbus and dedicated drive modules; the Mitsubishi BTL600 ships its own complete circuit diagrams. Web tension control, automatic splicing and reel stands share nothing with sheet-fed architecture, so buyers harvest cylinders and drive components by the part while sellers price by the tonne — and the hammer price keeps sliding.
Where the Exited Capacity Goes
Smithers projects global sheet-fed offset volume to grow at a modest 0.3% CAGR from 2024 to 2029, with packaging picking up the slack; September's used machinery show in India is matching Southeast Asian demand. For secondary-market buyers the takeaway is clear: rather than take over a web line running below 45% utilization, put the budget into a well-kept used sheet-fed press — Heidelberg CD102 and Komori L40 remain the safe bets.
Conclusion: A 5.76% annual drop in newspaper volume plus a package that needed six listings to sell marks the concentrated exit of newspaper web offsets; money and orders are migrating to sheet-fed and packaging — that is today's secondary-market story.
