Talking to The Packman, Kuldeep Malhotra, deputy managing director, sales and marketing, Konica Minolta India, said, “The market scenario now looks better – be it office environment or digital print market, everyone is bullish and enthusiastic about the market future.”
“It has already been five to six months since the second wave of the pandemic had hit us. Fortunately, that phase is now over – but you never know when things might change and take everything into its grip again. We have realized that this is now going to be a part of our lives,” Malhotra said. “The government is also looking at bringing back the GDP growth. Considering all these scenarios, I will say that life is slowly getting back to normal once again.”
Malhotra said that Q1 2021 saw a negative trajectory as the print volume went down drastically in all segments including coffee-table books and digital print because offices and educational institutions were closed and there was no demand for print. However, things have bounced back and started to look up in Q2 2021. “During Q2 2021, we have seen a very good print volume compared to Q1 2021 and H1 of the last year. Since print volume has staged a comeback back, there is a great exception and market sentiment that Q3 2021 will be even better than Q2 2021.”
“We have also seen growth coming back in the high-chroma market. The market for wedding albums and marriage cards was badly hit during the pandemic. Now things are opening up everywhere and so the demand for high-chroma products is also coming back,” Malhotra said.
Malhotra added that market uncertainties have also helped in fueling the growth of digital print volume – people are shifting to short-run prints because market requirements are changing rapidly; what has been printed today might get obsolete the next day. “In addition, print-on-demand is getting popular to cut down on increased warehouse cost and fulfill dynamic market requirements,” he said.
Malhotra observed that the short-run demand is growing faster than it was three years ago. “Even the packaging industry is seeing a growth in short-run prints up to some extent,” he said. “We have done quite well in the short-run digital labels market. We have already sold 10 roll-to-roll label printers in last 3 to 4 years out of which 6 units were sold in Delhi-NCR,” concluded Malhotra.
