Komori India team with Ashwani Gulati of Advantage Offset at Pamex 2020. Photo IPP
Komori is a regular participant in the biennial Pamex exhibition in Mumbai. In our visit to the Komori stand, we met with Sangam Khanna, deputy managing director of Komori India, and he says, “All the verticals of print are not doing bad. If you see, packaging may have had a hit, so has commercial printing. We have been in a position to be successful with printers who are intermediate. Commercial printing hasn’t grown in the last couple of years but other verticals such as publishing have grown by 12%. However, once a printer invests in a press with an inline coater, he can not only offer value-added commercial printing work to his customers but can also venture to other, more lively segments such as packaging.
“While, digital has picked up, the digital machine numbers have not picked up. The digital segment is now undergoing transformation where people are buying refurbished digital presses under fasma which has grown the digital volumes. There will always be growth in one vertical or the other print vertical.” Komori India has almost reached its target for FY 19-20 and with three months left for the year to end, Khanna feels that the company can easily sail through to meeting its targets.
Komori Lithrone 437 with coater sold to Advantage Offset
At Pamex 2020, Komori announced the sale of its flagship Lithrone 437 with inline anilox coater to Naraina-based Advantage Offset who also won a ticket to drupa 2020 with this purchase. Earlier, Komori announced a special offer for printers who plan to visit drupa 2020 to help them understand new technologies and strategize future investments.
Ashwani Gulati of Advantage Offset, is an existing customer of Komori. The company owns two refurbished Heidelberg presses and one Komori 4-color press that it bought in 2015. “The speed of the new Komori presses will help me a lot. I also have two second-hand Heidelberg presses but since they’re old, they’re not fast enough. The new press with help me almost double my production on a daily basis,” says Ashwani Gulati of Advantage Offset.
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.
