International trend, high speed, high quality and less consumption of resources has made digital printing a favourite for not only textiles but garment manufacturers also and this brought a good crowd to digital printing halls which were seen in hall number 11 and 12, 12 A. HP Prints, Orange o Tec, Mouvent, Colorjet, Mimaki, DCC and many more were seen. While the demand for Digital Printing is on rise the only deterrent is post treatment and water disposal which has been issue of concern for most of players who want to invest. The show however, served as a good networking platform where existing manufacturers not only got the chance to look and analyse digital printing machinery but also, interacted and learnt about the usability of machines. While earlier most of DTP players were focusing on high speed machines the trend is slowly changing now as there is influx of entry level machines which is ideal for smaller runs. The demand is mainly driven by fashion design studios, sampling, export houses who are no longer interested in jobwork and want to get in-house facility for digital printing.
“We saw better visitors today than yesterday. We have two new machines- one is for direct printing and other is with dispersing, launched first time in India. Both are 1.8 metre machines- one specifically for reactive and one for dispersed. The prevailing market scenario is not very good actually even though the GDP and numbers are showing good. After the shock of GST, the textile industry is not completely recovered. But for digital printing, market is good as compared to other segments. We have machines for both large volumes with high speed and also for small production runs i.e the entry level machines. I think the exhibitions are happening too fast to show new products. It would be better if these happen in two years gap so that we can showcase some new technologies. I think by 2020 the situation will be even worse for textiles, automobile and other industry.
Vir Vikram Bhatia, MD, Apsom Technologies
Gartex is a good platform to display our solutions. We have participated in Gartex over the years and we always have received a good response from the exhibition. This year we are displaying our two solutions from our own COLORIX brand. One is the SubPro I a High Speed Dye-Sublimation Printer and the other is FabPro II which is a Direct to Textile Printer. We always have displayed high speed direct printers, but this year with these two machines, we will connect with the entry level customers. These machines are mainly focused for the customers who want to set foot in the digital textile printing. Gradually they can opt for high speed printers. These printers will allow the customer to set and understand the digital market with less initial investment. Business wise Mumbai has been very good for us as we have already 18% market share. People still have limited knowledge about digital printing and many process houses have shut down in Surat because they without understanding have expanded in the segment. Design and processing are two major critical areas. All top machines are almost same but engineer and after sales support is what matters the most. SubPro I was launched last year and we have received a very good response from the market. So far eight machines have been installed across India.
Aayush Rathi, Director, Orange Group
Here we are showcasing a printer that prints directly on fabric that shows the prints on pigment ink rather than the usual reactive ink. Secondly we have a direct printing machine using RICOH GEN5 with 8 and 12 heads and speed of 65sq. meters and 90 sq. meters respectively in 8 colour. Also we have a industrial sublimation printer that first prints on paper with 2,4,6 and 8 heads and a speed of approximately 100 sq meters with Ricoh Head. We have a MUTOH printer made in Japan for which we are the exclusive Indian distributors since last 23 years. At the moment industry is looking for cheap machines with lower priced heads that can be sourced from Japan and China. Some customers are looking for better quality products also that can give high performance. We cater to premium segment only. There is a good potential for DTG machines and t-shirt printing and we have installed around 12 machines in the market. Such machines are in demand from retail segment and e-commerce. Screen Printing also has good market of Tirupur, but the only challenge is that they look for affordable ink pricing. It is mainly for t-shirts, they can invest on machines but require less priced inks. Response is good at the show but the crowd is comparatively less than the other halls. We can offer customised machines also.”
GS Negi, MD, Negi Sign Systems
“This year we are showing the new four-head machine for Xaar 1201. It’s a 100 sqm machine. The idea was to indigenously build machines in India and come with more innovations. Gartex Texprocess India proved to be an excellent marketing opportunity as our clients were able to witness this new technology demonstrated here. We are certainly happy with the response and will continue to participate in coming editions too.”
Vinod Krishnamurthy, CEO, Fortuna Colours & Prints LLP
“HP has introduced the new Stitch series after introducing the same at ITMA, Barcelona. For the Indian market, we found this to be the best platform to launch this series and were able to meet a lot of key customers from the industry. Though we were expecting more visitors but overall the experience was good and we hope that the market is going to see an increased demand for digital printing machines.”
Ajay Aggarwal, MD & CEO – Insight Print Communications
“The crowd actually is good but the materialisation isn’t happening. We are expecting more people in the afternoon yesterday. The potential customers are coming but the garment industry is not much visible. There is good demand for digital machines but market does not have the potential as customers don’t want to expand. Once they expand, automatically our product will do better. Plus we are introducing new items and to compete with our own products we are making some competitive machinery which can do more production than the previous ones so that our existing customers also can be helped out with upgradations. This time we are showcasing multi-head heat transfer machineries for label transfer and for fusing that can help the customers by reducing the labour and power consumption. On one machine we are planning to increase the production capacity for now. The exhibition is a platform to meet the customers and to display our new products so definitely it has great importance. The organiser is good & the show has been done in a very professional manner.”
Sudhir V Nair, CEO, Cheran Machines
“Last year the response was better but this year it is quite average. I think there should be more focused marketing on bringing players from home textile, automobile and garment segment. The trend is changing as I see a lot of manufactures these days prefer to visit international shows and see latest technologies rather than visiting local shows happening in industry clusters. The venue is no doubt good, it has better facilities and deliverables.”
P.Gunasekaran, Managing Director, IMA ASIA.
