Original story
World Trade Digest 11.9.2015
Hologram newspapers drive paper manufacturers to the brink - UPM and Canadian Paper close newsprint mills
Two of the world’s largest wood processing concerns, the Finnish-based United Paper Mills-Kymmene and Canadian Paper Mills, have both announced they will be abandoning newsprint production following recent losses and downsizing.
In the press statement issued by Canadian Paper Mills, the company reported that the Hologram Division acquired in a merger two years ago would henceforth become CPM’s strategic spearhead. “This is not a hasty decision; we resolved at the beginning of the decade that our core business area in the future would be the production of information platforms, and not wood processing”, emphasized the company’s CEO German Rice.
UPM-Kymmene also issued a statement on closures, but gave no indication of its future plans.
In the background to the news, which comes as little surprise to industry analysts, lies the rapid growth in the popularity of hologram newspapers, magazines and books. Just a few years ago, sales of literature for onscreen consumption were relatively insignificant, and despite doomsday fears voiced as long ago as the 1980s of a “paperless society”, printed newspapers and books were holding their own in the market, because they were relatively compact and could be carried anywhere. But then along came the hologram duplicator, the so-called Nokia Duplicator, and the printed media market was turned upside down almost overnight. The device allowed the duplication of holograms as fast as print newspapers, and paper has since rapidly lost ground among discerning readers.
Today hologram papers and books can be bought and read everywhere. The actual hologram reader or holoset slips conveniently into the pocket and weighs not much more than a videophone. When the holoset is taken out, it allows for a newspaper or book to be opened before the reader’s eyes. A typical holoset has a memory capacity of anything up to 1000 books or newspapers, and turning of the pages or switching from one book or paper to another takes place at the press of a button. One of the most familiar sights on the beach this summer has been a holoset placed in the sand, adjusted to the correct angle and size of page and print - and a dozing user lying in front of it. Some things never change about holiday reading!
In the most sophisticated and expensive versions, it is even possible to project a hologram page in the air above your morning muesli bowl and coffee-cup. In other words, holosets are easy to carry around and much easier and more versatile in use than the old-fashioned broadsheet newspaper or books. Many newspapers have taken the hint and have introduced hologram supplements or abandoned paper editions altogether, and publishers have chosen to drop paperback versions of their bestsellers in favour of holoset editions.
The new market conditions have brought headaches for several national economies, with Russia, Canada, Sweden, and Finland all being particularly badly hit. For example the Finnish Trade Research Institute has estimated that the country’s pulp and paper industry has shrunk in the past two years by a staggering 75%. Similar figures from Sweden have triggered panic selling on EU exchanges and the value of the Euro has slipped by some 8% since January.
The European Union’s Trade Commission forecasts that it will be forced to inject as much as EUR 18 billion into the Finnish economy over the next two years in order that the country can adjust to the new situation. At a recent meeting of EU Trade Ministers in Rome, the French representative opposed such subsidies and claimed that the reason for Finland’s current economic malaise was simply the Finns’ inability to predict the consequences of technological development that they had themselves helped to foster. Amidst heated scenes, the Finnish representative accused her French colleague of dementia or selective amnesia, pointing out that Northern Europe had played its part in rescuing France from bankruptcy in the wake of the collapse of the wine industry following the rogue fungicide outbreak only 12 months ago.
Naturally, the new situation has also thrown up a small class of “paper freaks”, who gather into their collections any and all literature and other material printed on paper.
Toteuma-arvio 2026
Toteuma lyhyesti
- Ilmiön toteuma: 5/5
- Toteuma viiden vuoden tarkkuudella: kyllä; arviointi-ikkuna on 2010–2020
- Toteuma väljemmällä aikahorisontilla: kyllä, erittäin vahvasti
- Ilmiön ydin: digitaalinen uutisjakelu romahduttaa sanomalehtipaperin kysynnän ja pakottaa metsäteollisuuden sulkemaan painopaperikapasiteettia.
Verkkolehdet, älypuhelimet ja digitaaliset tilaukset ovat vähentäneet painettujen lehtien levikkiä ja johtaneet newsprint-koneiden sekä tehtaiden sulkemisiin. Hologrammilehti oli vain kuviteltu näyttötekniikka.
Johtopäätös: ennusteen teollinen ja mediallinen ydin toteutui erittäin vahvasti.