A quick primer on the outdoor signage machines and the Indian market

The top end of the outdoor signage market is still dominated by solvent-based machines although the uptake of grand format (above 100 inches wide) UV inkjets can be expected to be rapid in the next two years. Our guess based on expert inputs is that there are already 50 UV ultra-wide inkjet installed in the country. Most of these are Colorspan devices with some Nur and Vutek installations and a very small number of JetI, Durst, and Inca devices.

The top end solvent category in the 10.2-foot wide category is looking at sales of about 85 to 100 inkjet devices this financial year that ends on 31 March 2008. EFI’s Vuteks, which are the most expensive printers at approximately Rs 1.2 to 1.6 crore will likely sell about 15 to 20 machines over the year. In the next price category from Rs. 65 to 85 lakhs HP Scitex Vision will sell about 50 machines during the year. Gandi Innovations’ JetI will also likely sell 15 to 20 machines in the Rs 65 lakh range. Nur and Agfa will also have sold a few machines in this segment not counting the impact of HP acquiring Nur on December 10, 2007.

Midrange solvent based
The midrange category of grand format ink jet printers include those manufactured in Japan, Korea, China and India using primarily Spectra heads but also Xaar and Hitachi heads. Selling at prices from Rs 25 to 45 lakhs these include the Mutoh, DGI, Yaselan, TechWin, Witcolor, Floran and the recently launched Zeus Colorjet made by the Indian company Apsom Infotex. It is expected that with the 100 per cent growth of this segment in the 07-08 financial year, more than 250 devices will be installed by 31 March.


Lower end grand format
The market segment of signage printers selling for Rs. 6 to 10 lakh is estimated to be of about 1000 printers this year till 31 March. These are mostly Xaar based machines built in China and India. Increasingly the machines are imported from China and the heads are imported from Xaar by the Indian supplier and inserted during installation since there is a price advantage in this route. Brands include ColorJet, Wittcolor, Infinity, Caldram, and Nuteck.

Ecosol and mild solvent segment
In the ecosol and mild solvent segment where there is no odour from the output, is dominated by Roland, Mimaki, Mutoh and the HP 8000, 9000 and 10000 machines. Together they will sell about 150 machines in the year of which about 100 could be from Roland. This is a hot segment as far as growth.


Customer is coming into play
We can predict that the strongest trend in the Indian market is for the increased use of UV inkjet printers. Although a few flatbed UV inkjets have been installed there is a strong demand for converting solvent based roll-to-roll production to UV also. In addition textile printing using inkjet printers is estimated to be a fast growing value add segment but the technology is not yet as versatile as it needs to be for this application.

The other important trend that we learned about from several sources including the Fespa conference is that the customer’s customer is also coming into play. Increasingly the printer suppliers along with the media suppliers have to accompany the printer or partner with him in bidding and guaranteeing the quality and endurance of the product and in some cases the peak load uptime of the inkjet machine.