The opportunity and the challenge

Ipex clearly showed three things: the rise of digital printing and decline of offset printing in most of the developed economies; the continuous increase in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America of both print consumption and the manufacture of printing equipment and consumables; and lastly, that trade shows in the developed markets need to change.

Ipex was hardly over before many manufacturers made a beeline for Beijing where the China International Packaging Fair from 2 to 4 June was a huge success. KBA mentions both Ipex in end-May and the Beijing event in beginning-June in the same breath, while recounting its success this year — it has sold 20 large-format presses to book and packaging printers in China alone. The PrintExpo in Sao Paulo, Brazil from 23 to 29 June 2010 also promises to be a successful event in a region with print growth and increasing equipment manufacture.

We believe that shows such as Ipex and drupa will now come under increased pressure because in these regions they can be replaced by less expensive digital printing events. The heavy metal shows will gradually move to Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Chinese government-supported industry understands this, and their show platforms have as much focus as their equipment and consumable manufacturers. For the Indian print industry too, there is a great opportunity and a challenge to upgrade our manufacture, to increase local market share with quality equipment, to export, and to cooperate in building respectable show platforms.

— Naresh Khanna

How many Indians will really go to Ipex next week?

Eleven hundred Indians attended the last Ipex according to the organisers, IIR. Also according to the organisers more than 2,000 Indians have registered on-line for the fair this time. However on the basis of our talks with some of the printers and manufacturer’s Association’s that are involved in the group tours, it is expected that about 600 to 700 will attend the fair this time. Several of the tour groups are as small as 25 to 30 and one is claiming 150. Our own estimate is that the total figure of Indians at Ipex including exhibitors and agents and printer visitors and the strong media contingent would be between 625 and 800 this time.

The poll Ipex poll on our website has not really attracted much traffic. Of the valid responses (we have taken out the repeats from the IP address) almost 71 per cent say they will attend while just over 15 per cent say they won’t with almost 4 per cent in the may be category. As we have been writing over the past year, exhibitions everywhere are under intense pressure and while one view is that they are a great opportunity to learn (a view that we agree with) the other view is that they are losing some of their importance. This is echoed by almost 10 per cent of the respondents to our poll.

Improved and specialised exhibitions in India and elsewhere are slowly eroding the importance of the big international exhibitions. The print industry’s precipitous decline in the developed countries has not helped either with many exhibitors scaling down their effort by not showing running machines which was the hallmark of the big print exhibitions. ‘Perfect competition’ and consolidation are in the air.

Ipex was the largest English language print show but now the largest English speaking print industry in terms of business units (not yet in turnover) is in India and thus Indian industry is presented with an opportunity to replace Ipex if they dare to get their act together. Unfortunately the likelihood of this is not too great judging from the present situation and level of discussion between the AIFMP and IPAMA the printers and manufacturer’s associations respectively. We are still in the clutches of the three-cornered blame game – quasi-government organisations, associations at loggerheads and private organisers.