Web printing is likely to get very popular in India

There is an inclination towards digital printing. Can you take us through
the key trends emerging in this space?

One of the dominant trends is that people are moving towards short runs as
they are doing more targeted communication. Secondly, web is being aggressively
used. In India, we have been talking about digital for the last several years.
Signage is turning digital here. Most of the billboards and posters that you see
are all printed out of large-format machines. However, on the consumer side,
India is pretty much offset.

How big is the world's digital printing market?

On an average, between three to five percent of the global printing market
is digital. Asia is only two-thirds of that. India and China are far behind the
US, while Japan is a mature market. Our potential market is the remaining 95
percent, which is still non-digital. In value terms, the worldwide market is
around $800 billion. And for Asia, that number is roughly around $250-280
billion. So, Asia becomes 30 percent of the worldwide printing market.

What is driving digital movement in Asia, and India in particular?

Personalization is the key demand in the market. The more it is all
pervasive, the growth of digital will be higher. Today, mass campaigns are
losing numbers. People are trying to be more personalized and targeted.

In India, more growth will be on the commercial side, both in offset printers
and photo printers. Photo printers are going to be a big growth market for the
country. Digital players will be getting into photo and targeting digital
albums, web albums, etc on Indigo presses. Web printing is likely to be very
popular in India. Industrial printing would be for printing labels and
packaging, as India is a hot bed of manufacturing and branding. And then there
is signage, which again has a lot of potential.

What has been the impact of global slowdown on your sales?

In the first half, our Indigo business grew by double digits. The
impressions on Indigo grew by 40 percent. We hope that we will do better in the
second half. We see things stabilizing now. Some of the new presses, new
printers that we are launching are going to be more productive, more cost
efficient. We see a clear recovery in China, India, Australia, New Zealand, and
some parts of South East Asia.

How do you compare large enterprises against SMBs in India reacting to
their printing needs?

The first is that SMBs are more flexible and quick to adopt. But,
enterprises take more time to convert. Next comes the liquidity crunch in the
market. All these guys who are buying the machines are SMBs, and they are highly
dependent on liquidity in the market. We can see interest from enterprise side,
however, the conversation rates should be higher.

What are some business models that are emerging?

There is an intense demand from customers to outsource more and pay per use.
For example, Moser Baer decided to print their CD covers on Indigo. The low cost
of the CD wouldn't have been possible without going digital. This was a new
B2B2C model. Pirated version shrunk from 10 percent to 5 percent.

The next wave of innovation is expected to come from 'green'. What are
your initiatives in this direction?

On the signage side everything is printed on solvent which is not very eco-friendly.We
have a range of green products, including latex, water-based ink, etc. On the
equipment design, there are parts of the machinery where we focus how to reduce
power consumption. Fundamentally, digital is more green. The fact that you go
digital, you print just-in-time and closer to where you produce, it makes a big
difference. So, digital enables less wastage, and hence, more green.

Heena Jhingan

Source: V&D