Indian print in all its spheres continues to show growth and increased penetration into the hinterland. Not only new 4-color offset presses but the more compact and easier to operate digital presses are being installed in tier-2 and -3 cities and smaller towns. Although the print market continues to rely heavily on offset, ten to fifteen times as many new digital presses are installed each year. In fact, digital has become the entry-level technology to the industry with many digital printers graduating to multicolor offset purchases.
Since color drives print in India in every segment, the digital print market continues to be dominated by color cutsheet presses compared to monochrome presses. There is a growing demand for short-run color brochures, flyers and other short-run commercial printing. And, of course, personalization and customization of predominantly marriage, photo books, fashion, real estate and jewelry provide impetus and value-add opportunities.
According to industry experts, the distribute-and-print model and the decentralization of print has given print buyers not only easy access to good print but also helped in expansion of the overall market and demand. It is the digital printers who run collection agents and agencies in villages and towns that are serviced by their plants in bigger cities. Unlike Indian commercial printers who are rarely able to build plants in more than one location, there are numerous digital printers who run several plants that service entire states and sometimes two or three contiguous states.
At drupa in May, it was the Indians who were the keenest to buy the new generation of sheetfed and continuous fed inkjet digital presses. However, in the main these were either not ready or they met with delays in the India sales launches. Bhalchandra Nikumb, Kodak’s country manager for India cluster in commercial imaging, told Indian Printer & Publisher, “At drupa, Indian visitors were second only after Germany. They were keen to know more about what’s next. In digital printing, people are exploring new ideas and applications not only to add value to print but also diversify their products and services, while manufacturers such as Kodak are delivering solutions to meet these growing demands. Printers are looking both at brand new setups for digital and as complementary to their existing printing operations. The pace of investment in digital is steady.”
Manish Gupta, production printing marketing manager at Konica Minolta India says, “The Indian digital printing market has shown good growth in the current year. Our company has already installed around 300 presses in the first six months. We may not be growing as compared to about five years ago but we are on track as per our goals.”
Puneet Datta, director – professional printing products group, Canon India says that the heady growth of digital in the past eight years has tapered off. “In the last eight years, the Indian digital market saw good annual growth at about 20–25%, which has come down quite a bit due to various factors. Canon India is doing good business and our customers are excited about the various applications that are possible with the new generation of presses apart from regular digital printing work.”
Challenges remain for print, such as hyper competition on price and the reducing volumes in commercial printing. These are, to some extent, opportunities for digital as printers have to look at personalization and customization work which is steadily increasing. The overall consumption of print in India is still low and that is why it is the Indians who are keenly watching new developments that inkjet presses offer and that can compete with offset in terms of quality, cost and speed. For the rest of the world, which is over-invested in offset, this may not matter but Indian print consumers and providers have the opportunity to develop more efficient and sustainable models for education, information and communication using both digital and offset. Digital could be the most crucial component given our current levels of literacy and productivity.
