Hyderabad-based think grey ads has recently purchased and installed two Monotech wide-format inkjet printers – a Pixeljet Power pro and a Pixeljet Mini UV flatbed. The Pixeljet Power Pro printer is a 10-foot wide printer giving think grey the capability of producing very large signage at improved speeds. The Pixeljet Power pro has an array of 6 inkjet Ricoh Gen6 heads, which include CMYK and white.
The Pixel jet mini UV flatbed printer has eight heads, including four for CMYK inks and two each for white ink and varnishing. The printer can lay down very strong whites and varnishes for specialized applications that require double white printing and double varnishing.
Sridhar Vysetty, the owner and managing director of think grey ads, has extensive experience in the advertising, signage, and POP industry. He started the ambitious company in 2002 and now has over 200 corporate customers across India. Working out of its own premises, it has reached a level of 35 employees in its three branches with plans to grow nationally and overseas. Sridhar is keen to develop exports for think grey’s outdoor, printed, and fabricated products.
Note: This article has been corrected and updated on 10 August 2020 with additional information.
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.
