Once the most favoured platemaking technique, UV CTCP was being outpaced by thermal more than violet technology. Today, this number (for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) has upped to 131 – 55 thermal, 39 violet and 37 UV CTCP systems. The total potential of the market has surged to 1.7 lakh sq/m per month.

Of these 131, 63% are in-house installations for a print firm’s captive consumption and majority of them are thermal platesetters. As the major print firms have put in CTP devices in-house, the print service bureau business is on the decline.

The last one year saw nine new thermal kits and five new UV CTCP kits put into service. There was no show for violet platesetter. Interestingly, more than half of the remaining 37% of CTP kits, which are the investments made by the CTP service bureaus, deploy UV CTCP technology.

Clearly, the UV CTCP technology is gaining ascendancy in Tamil Nadu again, especially among the print service bureaus. The number of 128-channel UV CTCP devices has seen a surge in this print sector because of reduced cost of these high powered devices and aggressive marketing by the suppliers.

According to market reports, these are Amsky and Basysprint platesetters, which enable higher throughput and at the same time the plate cost is 20-25% lower than the other digital platemaking technologies. Moreover, if Chinese plates are used, the plate cost is as low as 40%.

Therefore, in this saturated market, service bureaus are switching from violet to UV CTCP in order to combat the cut-throat competition.

PWI View: The CTP segment is saturated. Over the next two years, the service bureau segment will see consolidation. While some firms will close down, few others will venture into printing. Though the number of new installations will reduce, printing companies will continue to add in-house platesetters.