Shares Manish Gupta, National Marketing Manager – PP & IP at
Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt Ltd, while talking
about the trends in the digital printing segment and the latest
application areas for digital printing.
What are the trends in the digital printing segment?
Manish: The photobooks segment is still on the upward curve. When we look at the volumes of prints on our machines, we find that the volumes are growing, which is a good sign in consumption of the photobooks. Earlier, photobooks were preferred in A and B class cities but now photobooks have made inroads in C & D class cities as well. Another important trend I am seeing is that digital printing is now being preferred by smaller printers in smaller cities. It is because digital is simpler process than offset for short run jobs and is now also preferred in C&D class cities.
Another trend worth mentioning is that printing machines are getting more productive and coming with inline finishing facilities. Now, people in A and B class cities are looking at auto-mode automated finishing solutions rather than relying on manual jobs. Some are adopting automated systems where they report online with the status of the print and finishing online. So, devices are becoming inter-connected intelligent to report back the data of the status of job completed in terms of finishing also. Efficiency of printers is going up with digital adoption in such cities, even though applications remain the same. Some of the FMCG companies are now going for personalised content to some extent but there’s still a lot of potential.
What kind of timelines should printers keep for upgrading a digital printing machine or when planning to invest in a new equipment?
Manish: Timelines depend of various factors like set of customers the company has and the kind of business model they have adopted. Generally speaking, the break even comes at 2 to 2.5 years’ time. Once they recover this cost, they should look for newer investments. Most of our customers upgrade their machines in 3-5 years.
For a commercial printer going digital as complementary machine, the right time to upgrade is 5-6 years.
According to you which segment in packaging sector can be converted to digital for faster adoption and sellability?
Manish: In terms of packaging, we are sitting at the tip of the iceberg. The economy is growing, food delivery apps like Zomato, Swiggy, etc are increasing the availability of reach of restaurants to the customers. Every packet they deliver needs packaging. So, packaging is growing at a much higher rate in India, as compared to other countries. The awareness is increasing and with government adding more regulations, some of the small time manufacturers earlier offering materials in plastic wrapped sheets are now looking at paper-based solutions. They are also adding labels like MRP stickers. This, in turn is helping the label & packaging segment.
Konica Minolta has the equipment to address these short-term packaging and labelling needs. Some of our customers are using KM-1 machine only for manufacturing paper tapes. This is a unique application for gift wrapping, etc.
There are two aspects – easy to sell and profitable to sell. Easy to sell segment is where printers will face lot of competition. But, we are seeing premium segment growing much faster. Here, the amount of efforts is high but profitability is more. Here, designing, material and creativity play a key role. India has lot of design talent to produce more creative jobs. Printers just need to approach the right set of customers for such jobs.
How is the inkjet picking up in commercial printing side?
Manish: Inkjet machines that Konica Minolta manufactures has an advantage in terms of the flexibility. Any printing process has limitation in terms of the choice of substrates it can print. Equipments are designed accordingly in terms of the processes. But, in Konica Minolta technology, the choice of substrates is very wide, which gives service providers to add more variety to their customers and cater to a wider segment. With KM-1, they can print on plastics, paper, PP and other difficult materials which are not possible using traditional process. For example, KM-1 can print plastic cards and packing tapes, which are unique applications.
Do you think online selling by printers can increase digital printing in India?
Manish: Online helps in printer’s availability to the customers, so be it a small job or bigger job, printer is available 24×7 to a customer. Secondly, because of automated process, manual steps can be avoided and profitability increases. Few of our customers, maybe just 10%, are using these services.
What are your plans for Pamex?
Manish: At Pamex, we will be present with complete strength of equipment we have. There will be live demos of almost 6-7 digital devices. In electro photography range or laser, we will showcase C6100. We will also showcase our highest-selling model of AccurioPress3070 – 3080 series. We will also demonstrate live the IQ501 colour management solutions which is an intelligent quality optimiser. We will also be demonstrating some of the unique applications our customers are doing worldwide. There will be two application zones – one for production prints and another for industrial printing.
Since PAMEX is a big exhibition and we will meet a much larger set of customers, we are hoping that IQ501 will create lot of interest as it helps in improving the productivity and consistency of prints.