(From left to right) Sangam Khanna, deputy managing director, Komori India, Yoshiharu Komori, chairman and CEO – Komori Corp., and Hirofumi Hoshino, managing director of Komori India at Printpack India 2019.
At Printpack 2019, Delhi/NCR based Komori India is displaying its entry-level press, the Komori Enthrone GL 37, a 4-color plus coater for commercial printing and packaging segments. On Day 1, the company announced the sale of two of its presses to its customers from Lucknow. It sold two GL 37 presses to Amber Press in Lucknow.
“I have cancelled many appointments in Japan to come here. Most of them were extremely important. I also had some customer meeting in the pipeline but had to cancel all of them or reschedule those meetings to come to India to attend Printpack 2019.
“I did so because last time, we were here as a part of the Insight Group but this time we are here as an independent entity. This helps me take a better feel of the Indian market. I’m pretty excited to meet new customers here at the show. I want to see the prospects the Indian market has to offer us,” says Yoshiharu Komori, chairman and chief executive officer of Komori Corporation.
It has been nearly 10 months since Komori India came into operation. The company is quite expectant of good enquiries from the show and is looking forward to educate the market about its services.
“I am quite optimistic about the Indian market. Ever since we’ve come to India, I must say that our Indian operations are getting organized with each passing day. The Indian market according to me is full of potential and we’re here to explore it to the best of our abilities,” says Hirofumi Hoshino, managing director of Komori India.
Komori recently celebrated its 95th anniversary last year. Most of these 95 years were all about its offset machines but now with changing run lengths and demand in the market, we are also coming up with digital in addition to offset technology. “And also we are working towards bringing IoT to the customers in a bigger way enabling customers to connect prepress, press and postpress. Majority of the Indian customers have a small facility and are not very receptive to automation. We can help them improve and automate their processes,” adds Hoshino.
Komori India aims to sell 42 presses by the end of this financial year and is targeting for 51 machines in the upcoming year.
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.
