During a recent visit to the leading digital solutions provider Konica Minolta’s head office and demo center in Gurugram, Indian Printer and Publisher had the opportunity to meet Manish Gupta, head of product lifecycle management and planning division, at Konica Minolta India.
According to Gupta, the company’s solutions continue to stand out in the Indian market with their color consistency, advanced automation features, and versatility in handling diverse media. The AccurioPress C14010S, with its white toner capability, and the inline IQ 601 color quality control unit represents a significant advancement in digital printing, allowing printers to expand their service offerings to include premium applications on colored and transparent substrates. This machine running at 140 A4 pages an hour is installed in the new demo centre which is much bigger than its earlier location in Gurugram.
The AccurioPress series excels in delivering consistent, high-quality output while offering media flexibility and reliable performance. The digital embellishment solutions provide unique finishing capabilities that enable print businesses to offer premium services to their customers. On the subject, Gupta remarks, “In print, whatever you can touch and feel has a higher recall value than a plain digital version.”
Each solution in its lineup, from the AccurioPress series to the MGI AccurioShine systems, is designed to address specific market needs and help businesses achieve their production goals. A highlight is its AccurioPress C14010S with white toner capability, which opens up new possibilities for creative applications and premium printing services. Since its India launch at Print Expo in Chennai four months ago, the AccurioPress C14010S has been installed at six places in India, including customers in Delhi’s Patparganj and Gole market.
On markets in India, Gupta explains that the print volumes and applications are increasing, but the average realisation rate is being affected. “Due to competition and other factors, the selling price of printed commodities is coming down. When printers compete for volume jobs, the profit margins suffer. When one printer offers a commodity for X price and four others offer X-2, it causes a disruption.”
Automated intelligence to be built into the digital press
On KM India plans, he said that the company is on schedule to introduce more advanced features to its latest and upcoming technology, which will include automated intelligent systems for both prepress and postpress, and the capability to read variable data printing (VDP).
For consistent color quality, Konica Minolta has worked on automated paper profile (white) calibration infeed for a similar substrate. For instance, the variety of papers used by a printer can be calibrated and stored at one go, as their white point becomes the reference for the machine, and the machine will automatically recognize the paper when it is used. The new calibration technology also checks for paper stiffness, humidity, and length of the paper, which is especially important for registers in duplex printing.
At the time of feeding the paper into a pile, there are chances that a sheet or two may stick out of the pile, or in the case of sheets with different lengths, the intelligent feature will automatically detect and reject the misfeeds. The issues that can occur due to manual feeding can be corrected in the press seamlessly. “The technology will be more intelligent in terms of what substrate is being used to print on,” he said.
At the Digital Print Asia 2025, held on 21 and 22 August 2025 at Novotel Jaipur, Seiji Nakashima, corporate vice president and division president of professional print business headquarters, Konica Minolta, stated that the company is leading with a market share of more than 50% digital machines in India. When asked how the company has retained its market share, Gupta said, “We have more feet on the streets for service and training together with several of our partners in India.”
