[dropcaps style=’2′]In a move to further strengthen its footprints in India, Komori Corporation has established its India subsidiary, Komori India Pvt. Ltd. Earlier, the company was operating in India through its sole distributor Insight Group. At a press conference in Delhi on 20 April 2018, the company announced the launch of its India office to strengthen its presence in the market in addition to having better turnaround time. Komori is already a market leader in India through Insight Group with a market share of over 40%.[/dropcaps]
“With the launch of India office, Komori aims to strengthen and enhance Komori’s presence in India and nearby countries. We are very excited to start our India operations. With the India footprint, we’ll be able to provide the world-class quality and strong support to aid the Indian market. We will use the best of global and local processes to provide the highest value to our customers and maximize customers’ benefit,” said Hirofumi Hoshino, managing director, Komori India.
[quote style=’1′ cite=”]Our customers, especially packaging companies, are requesting us to provide them with bigger, faster and state-of-the-art machines. The bottom-line is we are going to take the packaging market in India very seriously along with the commercial printing market which is equally important to us – Satoshi Mochida, chairman of Komori India[/quote]
The board of directors of the newly formed subsidiary has Satoshi Mochida, chairman; Hirofumi Hoshino, managing director; Sangam Khanna, deputy managing director sales and marketing; Ajay Aggarwal, director finance and administration; and Bhupendra K Srivastava, sales director.
Speaking to the media, Ajay Aggarwal said that Komori India is a joint venture between Komori Corporation and Insight Group’s offset press division with Komori holding the majority stake. However, Aggarwal refused to share the stake size. The new venture also absorbs Insight’s channel business of selling machines manufactured by Czech Republic-based Soma. Insight will continue to run all its other businesses with its other channels partners including HP, Kodak, Mimaki, Konica Minolta independently as before. With the acquisition of Insight’s offset press division, Komori India will continue to retain all the employees of Insight in its new team ensuring absolute continuity with the existing sales and service activities.
Furthermore, through this move, Komori plans to strengthen and scale its operations even further in India and sub-continent. In a bid to have a strategic hold in the Indian market, the company will be introducing customized printing presses suitable for Indian market.
Speaking exclusively to The Packman, Satoshi Mochida, chairman of Komori India, said, “The Indian market is equally important to us as the China market. The Indian market is one of the few ever growing markets in the world with strong demand for high-level achievements and huge potential for the future. That is why we are interested in the Indian market.” Mochida added that as of now there is no plan for setting up any manufacturing units in India.
“During last three years, we concentrated on selling our small machines in India. But today our customers, especially packaging companies, are requesting us to provide them with bigger, faster and state-of-the-art machines. The bottom-line is we are going to take the packaging market in India very seriously along with the commercial printing market which is equally important to us,” said Mochida.
Komori is amongst the top two companies worldwide which is involved in currency printing for many countries including Indian Rupee and is undisputedly amongst the world’s largest companies manufacturing offset presses for various applications of commercial printing like brochures, calendars, books, high-quality magazine publications and packaging printing like cosmetic boxes, liquor boxes, pharma boxes etc.
Started in October 1923, Komori Corp is presently in its 95th year and holds 70% market share in Japan. Komori’s relationship with the Indian market began quite a while ago. The first Komori press for the Indian market was delivered in 1954. The machine was a full-size (37 inch/640 mm) single-color press equipped with a stream feeder.
– Mahan Hazarika