A for Amcor which has merged with the Berry Global Group. The combined revenues will be around USD 24-billion. International Paper and DS Smith plus Smurfit Kappa and WestRock merging merged this year, too.

B for books. Pitambra Books in Jhansi executed a single order of printing and supplying 5,46,55,760 textbooks. Obviously, backed by a solid post-press division. P-books are doing well. The book publishing number is 10 Billion USD (as per Nielsen 2023).

C for coatings. By replacing lamination film with UV coatings, one converter saved 110-million tons of film within a year. The target is 230-million tons for 2025. May the tribe grow.

D for Drupa 2024 which was held from May to June, attracting 170,000 attendees and 1,643 exhibitors. 80% of visitors from 174 countries, primarily from Asia (22%) and the US (12%). Key themes included digitalisation and automation. Indian players invested INR 650-crore in digital and offset technologies.

E for Epson, which has completed its acquisition of Fiery. The Japanese tech and inkjet giant announced its plan to acquire the company in a deal worth USD 568.7m.

F for the Flint Group, which announced the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Vadodara, Gujarat. The new plant's focus: producing water-based inks and coatings for the paper and board market, and energy-curable inks for the label and narrow-web sector.

G for growth, packaging growth. The Indian packaging market size is estimated to be USD 71.9-billion in 2023. It is expected to touch USD 130.14-billion by 2028. This is 12.6% CAGR; at an expected growth of 22%. Industry A-listers seek government recognition, so India becomes a hub for the packaging industry. When will it happen?

H for Heidelberg. The German manufacturer has a new partnership with Japan’s Canon. Heidelberg spoke about the launch of the B3 Jetfire 50 sheetfed inkjet printing system at Drupa. This kit is based on Canon’s iX3200 model.

I for inkjet, where a lot is transpiring. Fujifilm invested USD 28-million in a facility in Delaware for the production of aqueous inkjet dispersions. The investment will double its production capacity of pigment dispersions to meet the fast-growing demand for inkjet printing globally. The good news for print in India is, work has begun in the Fujifilm Sericol factory in Pune.

J for Japan. The Yen is everything to Japan’s economy. It was a wait and watch when it sank to a 34-year low. The timing could not have been worse with it being around Drupa. Experts say, normalisation is near. The Bank of Japan hold rates and the key to what may happen in 2025.

K for Koenig & Bauer is simplifying its structure into two segments. From three divisions of sheetfed, digital & webfed, and special, comes a consolidation into: Paper & Packaging Sheetfed Systems (P&P), and Special & New Technologies (S&NT). Restructuring is the name of the game with almost every German major.

L for Labelexpo India The show in November saw over 90% Indian exhibitors and attracted 13,752 visitors, marking a 14% increase from 2022. The event featured a record 70 first-time exhibitors. It was a resounding success, with visitors purchasing both India-made and imported machines. Suppliers including Multitec, UV Graphic, RK Label, NBG, and Webtech, reported multiple flexo press sales.

M for Mavco Investments and Avenue Capital Group, a consortium that acquired Hubergroup. This shows the aspiration of Indian players who seek to carve a bigger role in inks and specialty chemicals.

N for the Naini Group, which will add 130,000 TPA to our current manufacturing capacity at its site at Kashipur, Uttarakhand. The project aims at exploiting alternative opportunities in the flexible packaging segment.

O for offset print which rules. The Indian sheetfed printing press market has 1,500 brand-new presses running. Between April 2023 and March 2024, 69 presses were imported, with Komori leading the market with 49 presses, followed by Heidelberg and RMGT with seven presses each, Koeing & Bauer with five, and Manroland with one. Close to 2,000 presses pre-owned presses are imported to India every year.

P for paper. China and Indonesia's brand new 24 lakh tons of virgin board capacity are expected to create an excess supply situation in India. The paper trade in India will face stiff competition in 2025. Thusfar, it has been a sellers market in India.

Q for QR codes. There are more QR codes born in 2024 than citizens on this planet.

R for Ramesh Kejriwal. He topped the PrintWeek Power 100 list in May. And then the company bagged the PrintWeek Company of the Year Award. With 13 manufacturing plants across the country, Parksons is a leader in paper packaging. A role model for many in our industry.

S for Somerset Indus Private Equity who have invested in PrintMann’s growth prospects. There are other players in the investment game: Advent International, Blackstone, Kedaara, Premji, and Warburg Pincus. Today, private equity players have invested Rs 250-billion in the sector. This represents 85% of the total capital invested in the Indian packaging sector. In the last four years, Rs 100-billion has been invested in the flexible packaging space by global as well as domestic private equity players.

T for TechNova and TPH who among other things have been flagbearers for the Make in India project long before it was a catchphrase. Other Indian manufacturers like Autoprint, Bindwel, Line O Matic, Pratham and were waving the India flag at Drupa.

U for the UN Plastic Treaty at Busan in South Korea which lost an opportunity to nail the treaty. Now the citizens of the world will have to wait for another 1,000 days.

V for victors at the PrintWeek Awards. The 2024 edition indicated the industry has innumerable doers. We should take inspiration from these inventors and implementers. The message from the PrintWeek jury said, “Give us innovation, and we'll transform the whole world.” Well, the packaging and print industry is doing its bit. Now it's time to unlock the economic potential and extend the tech outreach.

W for Wan-Ifra in Hyderabad in September. Two bits of news trickled from the newspaper majors. One, numbers looking better than the doom and gloom during the Covid months. The other breaking news is, more than ten newspaper majors have moved one step closer towards their packaging factories.

X for X quotient. Smartphone sales notched up 35.3 million sales in Q1 of 2024. This is impacting the rigid box industry in India which industry experts state is approximately Rs 20,000 crore.

Y for yield management, which maximises resource use and profitability. During a formal conversation on the PrintWeek Awards Night on 23 September in Mumbai, Manu Choudhury of CDC Printers alluded to two rules for optimising plant efficiency: make costly equipment the bottleneck and eliminate interruptions around it. Using technology like Esko Automation Engine which has boosted access to crucial information, cutting delays and non-productive hours in the printing process.

Z for Zepto who have recorded over 600,000 orders per day on a record-breaking day. Swiggy Instamart has been receiving close to 500,000 orders per day. BigBasket receives over 400,000 orders per day in more than 30 cities in India. Quick commerce industry in India is expected to generate USD 3.35 billion in revenue in 2024, and grow at a CAGR of 24.33% from 2024 to 2029. The last few months have seen various types of paper bag for Quick Commerce (eg. Zepto and BlinkIt), Food Delivery Platforms (such as Swiggy, Zomato) , HORECA ( Hotel Restaurants & Cafe) & QSR (Quick Service Restaurants), eCommerce (Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon).

Opportunity knocks!

---

Ramu Ramanathan is editor at PrintWeek and WhatPackaging?