Screen renews old ties, adds Nippon Color as its India representative

Screen began its India journey with Nippon Color as its pre-press equipment selling partner in 1994, when, the company claimed, it successfully grabbed a majority market share for their imagesetters and CTP devices. Screen has since added equipment such as Truepress Jet series of large-format inkjet printers, UV inkjet label presses, sheetfed and web-fed inkjet presses, the Equios workflow system, RIPs.

“We are delighted to associate with Screen again after sharing a long successful relationship with them in the past. We sold over 600+ CTP/CTCP machines in a span of 15 years. The brand name Screen with Nippon Color resonated with trust and reliability and we want to bring that faith back to our customers”, states Jayant Pardiwala, the CEO of Nippon Color.

While the CTP market remains key to Nippon Color, the company said, it is also putting high emphasis on digital technologies. Digital label printing is growing as more and more flexo printers realise the importance of print on-demand. “Screen’s Truepress Jet allows label converters a shorter-turnaround time to market with the benefit of customisation. The Truepress Jet L350UV SAI Series offers seven inks to ensure superior color reproduction while an extra printhead provides optimum scalability,” said Pardiwala. “We are particularly excited about the new PlateRite series of Thermal CTP, and Flexo CTP systems which are offered with an optional magnetic drum for steel-based plates.”

At present, Screen is represented by New Delhi-based Insight Communications and TechNova. PrintWeek spoke to Ajay Agarwal of Insight Communications, he informed that Insight will continue to represent Screen. Insight has installed two Truepress Jet inkjet label presses in India. Overall, there are about 63 digital label presses in India.

Akshat Pardiwala, the COO at Nippon said that his company hopes to sell two to three Truepress jets and then pick up from there.

According to Pardiwala, the COO at Nippon, the commercial print market is gradually declining as more electronic forms of flyers, brochures, magazines, and newsletters. “Moreover, after Covid, businesses have become more cost conscious. This has given a big hit to commercial printers, maybe one of the main reasons why we have customers planning a move to packaging. E-commerce is booming with a huge growth potential, giving printers a great opportunity in the labels and packaging segment. While digital printing technologies have seen their way into commercial printers due to shortening of run-lengths, offset remains the primary technology for packaging with digital UV inkjet starting to surface due to its expanded range of printing substrates.”

Nippon will also be selling Screen’s flexo CTP devices. Akshat said that flexo printing is continuously improving through developments in plate technology, advanced methods to mount plates, developments in anilox rollers, inks, and curing systems. “The market today requires eye-catching printed packaging of brands with spot colors. To cater to this, flexo has improved the most of any other analogue print process with developments across all stages from design to finishing. HD flexo imaging in pre-press is now allowing gravure-like print quality. While quality is improving, time and cost of approving artwork and producing plates is reducing.”