L–R: Abhishek Drolia, Swati Chaudhary, K Gruraj and Prasenjit Das of DuPont at Hemtextil 2017,
New Delhi. Photo IPP
At the recently concluded Heimtextil India 2017 event in Delhi, DuPont Advanced Printing showcased its pigment and dye sublimation digital textile inks for home textile applications. Designed primarily for cotton textile roll-to-roll printing, the dye sublimation inks are the most recent addition to the DuPont Artistri digital printing inks portfolio. The DuPont Artistri Xite S1500 dye sublimation ink in India was recently launched in India to deliver brighter colors and shorter production cycles.
“DuPont is extremely strong in the field of ink and chemistry. At the event, we predominantly focused on pigment and sublimation inks. We believe pigment ink is the next good thing to happen in the digital textile printing industry. You can see everybody talking about reactive and dispersed inks, which already have a huge market. However, pigment ink is the next level ink because of its simpler use, ability to work with printers having various viscosity piezo-electric printheads, and many more interesting features. In India, however, pigment ink has a niche market—the reason why we are trying to create awareness about the brilliant features and advantages of DuPont pigment inks,” says Prasenjit Das, sales manager – South Asia cluster, DuPont Advanced Printing. DuPont Artistri pigment inks provide excellent results including color intensity, batch-to-batch consistency and low printhead failure.
Pigment inks being in the formative stages in India, there are many challenges for DuPont. “People are comfortable using the existing reactive and dispersed inks. They don’t want to shift to a new ink which calls for a change of processes and technological infrastructure. Right now, people are not ready to invest in this. However, with rising competition and a growing concern for environmental issues, we can see more and more people shifting to pigment inks,” says Das.
“Different segment of inks bring with them their own set of challenges. If we talk about reactive and dispersed inks, the competition is high and price is an issue because of the mass volume. Of course, quality plays an important role and that is the reason why we have an edge over our competitors,” adds Das. He agrees that when it comes to pigment inks, the challenge is about developing a whole new market.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
