KBA's Rapida Presses Secure Strong Indian Market

German press manufacturer KBA has claimed that during the past two years there has been an increase in sales of its presses to India.

KBA added that there are also 35 medium-format printing units waiting to be shipped to India.

With its gross domestic product expanding at a rate of 7.9 per cent a year, India is one of the world's fastest growing economies.

The figures of between 12 per cent and 14 per cent for the printing industry are second only to China's.

India has around 150,000 print enterprises, and while most of them are in the north (Delhi) and the west (Mumbai), where there is a long tradition of printing, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata are also experiencing dynamic growth, added KBA.

The company believes that demand is expected to take off in the next five years, with advertising, packaging, labels and textbooks considered to be the sectors with the greatest potential.

To support that growth and make Indian printers internationally competitive the country must rely on foreign technology, in KBA's opinion.

The company is offering its Rapida sheetfed offset presses and achieving market penetration.

A four-colour Rapida 105 universal has been in operation at Niyogi Offset in New Delhi since the end of last year.

Niyogi produces catalogues, brochures, calendars, business reports and promotional literature.

A sub-division, Niyogi Books, which was established in March 2005, serves the market for coffee-table publications and other illustrated books.

Those, along with calendars, are the products that are printed on the Rapida 105 universal.

The links between Niyogi and KBA are of relatively recent standing as the Indian printing firm took delivery of a B1 (40-inch) press in 2002.

The new Rapida 105 universal, which has a maximum rated output of 15,000 sheets per hour (sph) has given productivity at Niyogi a boost, whilst its integrated washing system, IR dryers and CIP3 interface have shortened make-ready times.

A contract for three Rapida 105 universal four-colour press lines was also signed by Survey of India.

The first of the three presses was delivered to Hyderabad in April and the other two are destined for Dehra Dun, at the foot of the Himalayas and Kolkata in the second half of the year.

In May KBA delivered a six-colour Rapida 105 universal coater press to Paper Products in Hyderabad.

The press, whose features include Densitronic S, CIPLink and a UV capability, will come on stream later this year printing lightweight labels and metallised cartonboard together with various plastics and in-mould films.

Paper Products is one of the biggest packaging printers in India and a subsidiary of Finnish group Huhtamaki.

S Chand is one of the biggest publishing houses in India producing textbooks for schools, which is a long-standing user of KBA presses.

Its first two-colour and four-colour Planeta presses were ordered by the founder, Shyam Lal Guptam whilst in 2004 his son Ravinder Gupta signed up for the company's first medium-format Rapida, also a four-colour version.

Since then S Chand has passed to the third generation and is now headed by Shyam Lal Gupta's grandson, Himanshu Gupta, who has decided to invest in a Rapida 105 universal.

Press features include a non-stop facility at the feeder and delivery piles, washing systems and IR dryers.

Gopsons Papers in New Delhi is a paper vendor and commercial printer.

Its press room houses three sheetfed offset presses from KBA's Radebeul (Germany ) headquarters with up to five printing units.

Over the next few months they will be joined by a fourth, a four-colour Rapida 105 universal.

KBA added that Gopsons has two strings to its bow.

The first is a range of children's and young people's books, reference books and dictionaries, as well as light literature for international publishing houses, amongst them Random House, Langenscheidt, Penguin and Oxford University Press.

The second press is printing security products, which include lottery tickets, admission tickets, parking tickets, labels and various other articles that entail the application of holograms, or other security features.

Back to top