Strong gravure growth in India

Strong gravure growth in India

New electronic engravers to increase by 30% in next two years

By Naresh Khanna

Imported gravure presses from Cerrutti continue to be installed by the big flexible packaging players in the
country. Some of the leading Indian gravure press manufacturers such as Expert, Lapra, Pelican, Kusters Calico and Kohli are also busy with both domestic and export sales. This continued growth of gravure (almost entirely for packaging applications) has also fuelled the demand for the more efficient production of higher quality cylinders.

Gravure prepress or cylinder engraving is emerging as a volume game. Almost half the existing population
of the approximately 80 modern electro-mechanical engravers are with just six or seven large flexible packaging companies and cylinder suppliers to the trade.

However in the last couple of years the rate of new engravers coming into the Indian market has increased from six or seven a year into the double digits. All this adds up to at least another two-dozen modern
cylinder making machines being imported in the next two years. Essentially the local market is still dominated by hundreds of chemical etcher cylinder makers. As Arjun Kohli Vice President of KGS, the company that sells and services Hell Gravure systems in the country says, “the current phenomenon is a result of the top chemical etchers having to buy an electronic engraver just to survive. Of these, hundreds or as many as 20 per cent, can be converted to high quality and productive state-of-the-art equipment. Our experience is that within a year or eighteen months of buying their first or second electronic engraver, another engraver is ordered.”

According to industry experts, with one new electronic engraver most cylinder makers are able to run one
or two shifts at most. As soon as the second or third engraver arrives they are in a stronger market position with better logistics and the operation ramps up to a 7/24 three-shift operation.