Sanpada-based King Digital opts for Canon imagePRESS C850

Rising digital print volumes in Sanpada

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Pravin Patel, owner of King Digital with the Canon imagePRESS C850
Pravin Patel, owner of King Digital with the Canon imagePRESS C850

Based in the Sanpada area of Navi Mumbai, King Digital caters to a large number of corporate customers who are based in the vicinity of Sanpada, Vashi and Koperkhairne. The digital print service provider also deals in a large number of retail clients, especially walk-in customers, due to its strategic location next to the Sanpada station. To cater to the rising print volumes, on 3 June, King Digital commissioned a brand-new Canon imagePRESS C850 production digital printer. King Digital prints items such as brochures, leaflets, danglers, visiting cards and invitation cards, among others. It is into wide format printing as well, which is just a small part of King Digital’s overall business.

“We were using the Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C1060 until we bought the Canon imagePRESS C850. One press was not able to handle the rise in print demand, so we had to go in for the second one. We attended a demo session at a Canon customer in Andheri East and liked what we saw in terms of quality and versatility,” says Pravin Patel, owner of King Digital.

According to Patel, the biggest attraction of the Canon imagePRESS C850 is duplex print jobs thay the press can perform on heavy weight media up to 300 GSM, with highly accurate front to back registration. “The color consistency, print quality, flexibility of media and the Fiery support are some other features that attracted us. With front back registration we can now easily handle jobs like printing three-fold brochures. With this feature we can save a lot of time,” Patel shares. Since the start of operations, the Canon imagePRESS C850 has been printing on an average 4,000 impressions every day.

King Digital’s storefront
King Digital’s storefront

Canon imagePRESS series consists of ImagePRESS C650, ImagePRESS C750 and ImagePRESS C850 production printers. In terms of speeds, the C650, C750 and C850 can print 65,75 and 85 pages per minute respectively with resolution of 2400 x 2400 dpi.

Another digital press in the offing
Patel sounds very bullish about the prospects of the digital print business and expects his volumes to continue to rise in coming future as well.

“As I have already mentioned, we are seeing a huge rise in digital print volumes mainly due to shortening of run lengths. The fact that customers want their jobs done at lightning speed is another factor fuelling the digital boom. I feel we may soon need to add another digital press; maybe by the end of this year. It is early days, but we are very satisfied with Canon’s performance, so we may opt for another Canon, who knows,” Patel concludes.

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.

– Naresh Khanna

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