At the recently held Labelexpo India, Multitec showcased two presses— the VSI Servo S2, which comes with two servo motors at every print station, and the Ecosmart Servo. Amit Ahuja, managing director at Multitec said, “For an 8-color press, the total number of servo motors fitted onto the press are 19. To start a new 8-color job, you can set it up within 30 meters. Also, for the first time, we displayed one unit with LED UV curing from GEW. The Ecosmart Servo, which is also a full-servo press, is aimed at printers who only want to be in labels and not in other areas such as shrink sleeves.”
Multitec recently tied up with Multigraph, the trading division of Manugraph, to represent the Indian label press manufacturer in the Middle East and Africa. On its partnership with Multigraph, Ahuja said, “Multigraph has a wide network in the Middle East and Africa that increases our reach in that market. We are currently training the Multigraph engineers, who will eventually handle the postsales service of the machine in that region.” Sanjay Shah, vice chairman and managing director of Manugraph India, and director at Multigraph, said, “We are happy to be associated with Multitec. Indian machine manufacturers are doing very well overseas.”
At the Labelexpo show, Multitec sold both the presses that were displayed on its stand. Of the two machines sold, the Ecosmart Servo press was bought by Hyderabad-based Team Labels while the VSI Servo S2 press went to Zambia-based Print Fast. Ahuja said, “Team Labels has been traditionally an OMET customer so we are proud of this deal.”
Multitec has sold more than 15 presses in 2016, which takes the company’s total installations to 171. Although the company installed around 23 new presses in the last financial year, Ahuja said it will be difficult to predict whether Multitec will be able to match that figure due to the demonetization effect on the industry. He concluded, “Demonetization is certainly a factor that we have to consider now but we should not be too worried about it as sooner or later things will come to normalcy. However, I think it will have far more effect on the lower rung players in the segment. Nevertheless, we should see the implementation of GST in the next financial year, which should have a positive effect on the industry.”
