Chennai Diary from PrintExpo

After three days of high intensity action and long queues at the three-day show from 12 to 14 June at the Chennai Trade Center in Nandambakkam, visitors interacted with the 132 exhibitors at the trade show.

Exhibitors foresee business flexing its new capabilities with investments from PrintExpo. Whether this translates into industry uplift remains to be seen.

Photographs and Words: Sriraam Selvam

18 Jun 2015 | By Samir Lukka

VIPs inaugurate the three-day show from 12 to 14 June at the Chennai Trade Center in Nandambakkam

Crowds and queues which meant organisers ran out of 15000 visitor badges by day two

Esko showcased the Kongsberg V20 cutting table which saw sale to a top player in Chennai

Autoprint's Repetto 65 V2 was booked by Indore's R T Graphics. This is the 45th machine to be sold by the COimbatore-based manufacturer

Vasai-based Grafica Flextronica signed orders for its kit with SRM Printers and Raja Offset Printers

HV Sheth industry veteran who has placed Daya on the world map

132 exhibitors occupied 5550 sq metre of space

The show, in its entirety, generated optimism for both the exhibitors and the visitors alike

Almost every exhibitor reported closure of business and numerous leads

Digital, in particular, had a big presence at the event, and it is a buyers' market with almost all the major vendors being present at the show

Canon notches impressive numbers including sale of ten devices to one of the biggest players in Chennai

Gurjit Singh Dhingra of Canon says demand for print is increasing due to wide-format graphics. Even commercial printers have been looking to wide-format as a potential new business opportunity.

Konica Minolta, the platinum sponsor of PrintExpo was riding high with its new launches

Monotech riding high on made in India products with industrial inkjet press and solvent wide format press

Monotech's recent sale of their Konica Minolta business has been the talk of the industry but T P Jain is quitely confident of capitalising on the deal by investing further in manufacturing and strengthening their own brands like Pixeljet

Manish Sharma of Konica Minolta says the numbers look good for the new Bizhub presses C1100 and C1085. Sharma added: KM is focused on consolidating its position in the market and extend service offering to clients even more effectively through the Monotech takeover

Riso digital duplicators and printers show off their energy start compliant with low power consumption, eco-friendly soy ink, and natural-fiber masters

The 1000i colour engine launch at Xerox offers pantone metallic gold or silver specialty dry inks. "The 1000i is designed to give the printers a creative, competitive advantage, said Rajagopalan Balaji, executive director – technology and channels, Xerox India

Zenith Rollers: one of the most crowded stalls due to the their expertise in rollers for print industry

Insight team led by George Kannamala Mathew (in the centre) - bullish about the print market in South India

K J Paul at the Reprographics stall was identical to a supermarket; with all types of solutions

Kottayam printers with Sujilee Colour Printers (in the centre) who has booked a Horizon BQ270

Two printers from Coimbatore rocked the show: Shree Maruthi and Zig Zag. Of this visiting cards specialist Maruthi is loaded with a UV LED system from APL Machinery

iTech stall was crowded with its CTP platesetters and digital devices

Kapoor Imaging's Giridharan S sees good times ahead, with the organisation tasting recent success with the Topaz CTCP and the opening of the RBP chemical factory

Param's Vinod Nawab: The ERP man from Indore

The big wide format debate: Low-end solvent printer v/s good quality UV printer. Customers expect the UV print suppliers to match the price of solvent print suppliers. Thus there is no level playing field for those who invest in medium and high end UV printers vis-a-vis those who invest in low cost solvent printers. The volumes in other print applications are too small for justifying big numbers of UV printers in India

Dilip Sawant of Soham says UV lamps contain hazardous mercury. Which is why they have developed a system to dispose-off UV lamps as per the guidelines laid by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB-Delhi)

Vaidyalingam V of Suba Solutions believes packaging printers need to complement their investment with automatic die cutting machine for large volumes

Vasai-based Vallava Graphics have notched an impressive installation of more than 40 of their case makers in a short time of two years and Murugan, their managing director believes they are a shining example of Make in India