With growth in population and increase in economic activity in India’s tier-2 cities, digital short-run print demand has seen robust expansion in the last few years. This growth is part of a natural evolution as the few existing big print centres are not capable of providing services to customers in these places. With a large variety of local languages and preferences, localization of content is necessary. This growth has led digital press manufacturers to sharpen focus on these smaller cities.
Japanese digital press manufacturer Konica Minolta has had good success in terms of installations in such cities. When Indian Printer and Publisher met with V Balakrishnan, executive general manager – marketing, marketing division, Konica Minolta India, during the Consumer Electronic Imaging Fair 2016 in January, he talked about the company’s desire to further penetrate into tier-2 and tier-3 cities. “With localization you need more distributed print. Going forward I see digital growing with more printing hubs coming up in India as only few printing entities cannot claim to provide for so many languages and such varied geographies.”
One such success story has been Madhya Pradesh. In the recent past, Konica Minolta has made a variety of installations in cities such as Indore, Bhopal and Jabalpur. Printers we talked to were of different profiles, meeting the demands of a variety of customers. For instance, one printer bought his first production printer after having been in the digital printing business for more than a decade while another printer is planning to buy his second Konica Minolta production printer this year as demand continues to grow.
Jabalpur-based Gurunanak Photocopier installed bizhub Press C1100 in January this year to cater to rising short-run print demand from offset printers. It already had two bizhub Press C6000 presses. “We are printing about 100,000 impressions on the new bizhub Press C1100 every month. Most of our customers are offset printers who outsource shortrun jobs to us,” says Vivek Bhasin, owner of Gurunanak Photocopier.
Bhasin has now planned to go for another Konica Minolta digital press, Konica Minolta bizhub Press C71hc. The press is expected to be installed in August. Sheetlani Printers in Bhopal bought Konica Minolta bizhub Press C1085 late last year after employing two bizhub Press C6000 presses for few years. “I am planning to sell the two C6000s and buy another fast production printer,” says S Sheetlani, owner of Sheetlani Printers.
Indore-based Ashirwad Printers bought its first large production printer in early July after using four Xerox printers for close to a decade. The print house installed a bizhub Press C1085 after availing a buyback scheme offered by Konica Minolta. “The four Xerox machines were bought by Konica Minolta as per the buyback scheme offered to me. The Xerox printers were very old and slow and were not enough to cater to the demand I was witnessing. The new bizhub Press C1085 is fast and productive enough to replace the four Xerox printers I had. I have set a target of average daily print volume of about 2,000 impressions on the new press,” says Rajeev Khandelwal who has been in the digital printing business for more than a decade. He meets the demands of graphic designers, offset printers and jobbers.
The fourth printer we talked to is from Indore as well. Perfect Scan is also an old Konica Minolta customer who bought a bizhub PRO 950 after using a bizhub Press C6000 and a bizhub Press C8000 since the last two years. Nitin Gami, the owner of Perfect Scan has formal training in print engineering and is proficient in color management. He is now planning to buy a digital label printing press to fulfil the demands of the short-run label printing segment.“There is a growing demand for labels in local languages in cities like Indore. We want to tap into this market and therefore we are looking to buy a press. We have zeroed in on few options but are still to take a final call. We will take some more time to think about the options and will buy the press in the next financial year,” says Gami.
