There is a new wave of web inkjet presses in India. These presses can be called the third generation of inkjet presses in India. The first generation of inkjet presses were the Kodak CIJ printheads, although these were few, just one or two full-fledged web presses more than 20 years ago.
The second generation of equipment consisted of several presses, mostly for transactional printing, with the major investment being a high-volume HP press installed by Repro Offset at its facility in Delhi’s National Capital Region (NCR). In essence, this generation of digital inkjet equipment was too expensive for Indian printers. They were waiting for cheaper solutions and further development of the market.
This brings us to the third generation of presses, which is less about change or new technology than about a change in thinking about local needs and the rich selection of inkjet presses being manufactured in Asia (India, Japan and China). The first of these third generation inkjet presses are pioneered by Monotech India, which has been developing web-fed inkjet presses for wide-format signage, roll-fed labels and book production for the past decade. The company exhibited its label presses at Labelexpo Brussels 2023 and has exported several presses to Europe and China.
At drupa 24, Chinese exhibitors outnumbered all other countries, but coverage of Chinese exhibitors in the industry media was rather scant. Among the 400 Chinese exhibitors, there were reportedly only 11 manufacturers of web-fed inkjet equipment, which is mainly used in the document, label and packaging sectors.
Six of these companies – Arojet, Atexco, Flora, Hanway-Hanglobal, Hanglory, KingT and Shield – produce roll-fed inkjet printing presses for document and book production. Most of these presses use a variety of inkjet heads from brands such as Epson, Kyocera, FujiDimatix and Memjet and have resolutions of up to 1200 x 1200 dpi, although resolution affects print speed.
However, Chinese manufacturers Founder and Spande, which have been active in the Indian market in recent times, did not attend drupa 24. Miyakoshi, a Japanese manufacturer that has had great success in the Indian market, also did not attend the show. Monotech India, a pioneer in this field that continues to dominate the local market, also did not have a stand in Düsseldorf. However, other Japanese digital press manufacturers with drum toner presses and sheetfed inkjet presses for the Indian market did attend drupa, and they are seriously considering this market segment.
Apart from digital label printing presses, local manufacturer Monotech has installed seven digital printing presses, including four monochrome and three four-colour presses, in book manufacturing plants in the last few years (as of March 31, 2024). “Monotech has installed two digital book printing presses since April, has ordered eight more and expects to install 15 digital printing presses in the local market by March 2025,” said Tejinder Singh, head of the company’s KnowzzleJet business unit.
In addition, we estimate that around 15 new web-fed inkjet presses will be imported from Japan and China this financial year, bringing the total installed base to a possible 30. Japan’s Miyakoshi, sold and serviced by Provin Technos, is confident that it will double its existing two web-fed digital inkjet presses in the coming months. The influx into China has so far been led by Atexco, which benefited from its presence at drupa 24, and its dealer Insight installed several presses last year.
Founder Group, which claims to have the largest installed base of digital printing presses in China, currently has one press installed and operational, which is a good start. Its distributor TechNova is optimistic that Founder Group will have installed six more presses by March 2025.
The third roll-to-roll inkjet press we know of in the Chinese market is the Spande, sold by Provin Technos. Although it has not yet been installed, Vinay Kaushal, managing director of Provin, says the Spande’s superior rich colour quality and use of eco-friendly water-based inks could be a game changer in the market. The Spande uses Epson i3200 (8) AiHD printheads and comes with an online maintenance mode, including nozzle servicing.
However, Kaushal has a strong word of caution for printers who are in a rush to buy a digital inkjet web press. “Printers need to do their homework before buying a digital press,” he says. “They need to understand the specific printing application and carefully calculate the required ink coverage to assess the running costs of such a press.”
In addition to the costs of servicing and replacing print heads, there are also software and RIPS costs to consider, as well as the operating costs of the web inkjet printing press.
We spoke to TP Jain, Managing Director of Monotech, to ask him if he was worried about the rapid influx of inkjet presses from China. He seemed confident that he would continue to dominate this expanding market, explaining: “Monotech’s monochrome presses use 8.5-inch Memjet Duralink inkjet heads, while the colour presses use 13-inch Memjet Duraflex inkjet heads. Our 1600 x 1600 resolution presses have the best quality and a good reputation in the market, with customers constantly placing repeat orders with us.”
Speaking about the cost of ink, he said: “Our high resolution is due to the Memjet printhead droplet size of 2.1 picoliters, which means our ink yield is excellent and the number of pages per liter is significantly increased. Although the market is becoming increasingly competitive, our decades of experience in various inkjet applications should allow us to benefit from the growing interest in this technology in the book industry.”
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Post time: Jul-02-2025