The dizzying rounds of press conferences starting the day before drupa and going on for the first few days have begun. The press centre is full of the old time heavies who seem to always come back for more. Frank Romano is here, Laurel Brunner, Paul Lindstrom, Nessan Cleary our contributors from Digital Dots are here. South African, Aussies and of course the
Indian trade media teams in full force.
Rafael Penuela, CEO of Manroland Sheetfed initiated drupa 2016’s first press conference by very calmy showing the confidence in the strong viability of the company renewed as a division of the British Langley group. He said that the now Euro 300 million turnover company has been profitable over the past four years. Manroland Sheetfed gives out its annual report not just because of its robust viability but also because the report is an example of how offset print with value add features can leap off the page and is still the best and most cost effective way of mass communication. In answer to my question to him, Penuela said that roughly 50% of the company’s revenues are from new press sales and the balance 50% from the sales of spare parts and service and consulting revenues.
The new Manroland Sheetfed 700 Evolution press being demonstrated live at drupa 2016 is an 8-color press with foiler and doublecoater built for a Swiss carton printer which specializes in pharma cartons. A press like this with the new automation features and touchpad like interface can be bought for something like 3 to 3.5 million Euros.
Well its begun and judging from the old-timers in the press room and from some of the young‘ guns too, drupa is the only game time in town – meaning that it still enjoys the very special place in a very special industry that has been a battered but is adapting and still innovating, changing and will grow. By the way, I happily received an SMS from Sunil Khullar saying that he enjoyed the June issue of Indian Printer and Publisher – both Itu Chaudhuri’s cover story on the uncoolnes of Indian language newspapers and my story on whether drupa can be played like cricket.
