Pradipta Chowdhury, co-founder, Uni Inks at Media Expo Mumbai 2022
Established in 2020, Mumbai-headquartered Uni Inks demonstrated its solvent-based and eco-solvent inks at the Media Expo Mumbai 2022. Uni Inks exhibited at Media Expo for the first time. The company’s unique selling point is that its inks can be used on almost all print heads.
“When we established our company, our aim was to produce one ink that can be used on all print heads. And we have been able to achieve our aim. Our inks are true to our tagline which says universal, unique and uniform. Our inks can be successfully used on all print heads. This means that printers, as well as dealers, do not have to keep multiple inventories at multiple levels,” said Pradipta Chowdhury, co-founder of Uni Inks.
Uni Inks are compatible with all printheads using any solvent-based printers. Any printhead with the size of 7 picolitre or more is compatible with Uni Inks.
The company has a manufacturing unit at Vadodara in Gujarat which is spread over 22,500 square feet. The plant has a capacity to produce 150,000 liters of inks every month. “Our inks are completely made in India. We have a full manufacturing chain since we manufacture pigments to inks,” Chowdhury adds.
UV-cured and dye sublimation inks
Uni Inks at present is only manufacturing solvent-based and eco-solvent inks but will soon begin production of UV-cured inks and dye sublimation inks for printing on polyester.
“Our immediate aim is to start manufacturing UV-cured inks. This should happen in the next five to six months. After that we plan to begin producing dye sublimation inks for printing on polyester,” Chowdhury says.
Solvent ink’s future
At present, the company’s target audience is signage printers but it wants to begin producing all sorts of digital printers. “As of today, we are servicing signage printers. In the near future we plan to get into all types of digital printing segment,” he adds.
Uni Inks is also aggressively expanding its dealer network across India.
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.
