Kenichiro (Ken) Seki, managing director, of Mimaki Singapore with the Mimaki CJV 330. Photo IPP
Mimaki showcased its signage inkjet printers at the recently concluded 50th edition of the MediaExpo, held from 2 – 4 March at the Bombay Exhibition Center in Mumbai. The company displayed its CJV 330 eco-solvent, UCJV 300 inkjet, UJV 100 UV LED printer, and JV 100 roll-to-roll UV printers. The JV100 uses eco-solvent inks while the UJV100 and UCJV 300 use UV-cured inks. Also displayed were the Mimaki UJF-6042MkIIe flatbed UV industrial printer and the cutting plotter CG130AR.
“As a company, we are a manufacturer and we provide very good technical service as well – that’s one of the points that differentiate us from others,” said Kenichiro (Ken) Seki, managing director, of Mimaki Singapore. “We are also doing 4-layer printing, which is effective for backlit applications. It is also called day and night printing – when you turn on the backlights, the image changes, and when you turn it off, it becomes a daylight painting. That’s one of the USPs of the UCJV 300,” he added.
“We see very big potential for us to grow in the signage industry. According to the trends, especially in the south, there will be more demand for UV printing and lower demand for eco-solvent printing. Mimaki’s big strength is in UV printing, but we do eco-solvent as well. We hope that our market share will grow in the future in India and in UV printing as well.
“Our low-end printers like the 100 series have very good sales in India at the moment. Our eco-solvent printer JV100 and UV printer UJV100 are priced very reasonably – we are increasing our installations of these printers in India. The CJV 330 eco-solvent printer has a much higher printing speed and the printing quality is excellent compared to the entry-level machines – we want to start pushing this machine in the coming months,” he concluded.
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.
