At the drupa stand of Hell Holdings we met up with Eric Serenius the president of Ohio Gravure Technologies and Sudhir Dhotey the managing director of the company’s Indian distributor which is Daetwyler Graphics India based in Pune in Western India. Essentially both confirmed that the Indian flexible packaging market continues to be robust with good sales for modern electronic gravure cylinder engravers. While in previous years the market size was approximately 20 to 24 engravers, in the current year it is hoped that there will be an approximately 30% increase on previous figures. The order booking and installations of electronic engravers so far seem to validate this expectation.
Neighbouring South Asian countries are also part of the modernization trend. At drupa several customers from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka visited the Hell Holdings stand and spoke of some the recent purchases of cylinder preparation and engraving equipment.
At drupa, Ohio was speaking mostly about its Spectrum and Prism hybrid engravers that have become popular in the Indian market. These have some of the quality attributes of the more expensive laser engravers but are somewhat more general purpose and cost-effective. These already number more than half a dozen installations in South Asia and are likely to more than double or even reach the two dozen mark in the next year. The hybrid technology features an engraving head that is good for small type and linework together with half-tones and smooth vignettes with its ability to combine cell sizes and depths. In the fine quality mode all the smaller edge cells are moved closer to the main image and along the edges tucked into the full cells.
