drupa results point to positive L&P performance

drupa 2016 closed its doors on June 10 having welcomed 260,000 visitors to the 19 halls it occupied in Düsseldorf for 11 days at the beginning of June, with many exhibitors detailing busy stands and aisles throughout the show.

The show’s biggest exhibitor was HP, which took over hall 17 with displays of all its digital printing technologies, including strong representation of Indigo for label and package printing. Francois Martin, worldwide marketing director for HP’s Graphics Solutions business, declared drupa 2016 as a ‘landmark show for HP’, and said: ‘It is clear that digital has arrived as mainstream, with HP experiencing the best attendance at any drupa ever and with sales not only surpassing 2012 results by 20 percent, but exceeding our 2016 ambitious goals by 25 percent overall.’

Aviv Ratzman, CEO and co-founder of Highcon, reiterated this, and said: ‘drupa 2016 has been a tipping point for our business. Sales to both new customers and existing customers have surpassed our expectations by far. drupa has been confirmation that digital technology, and finishing in particular, has reached the point where it is becoming mainstream. Many of the customers we met during drupa have realized the need to start investing in technology rather than continue to expand capacity, adding value to their products instead of competing on price.’

‘The overwhelming amount of visitors from all over the globe exceeded our expectations both in closed orders as well as in new contacts,’ added Esko president Udo Panenka, with Goss marketing director Eric Bell continuing: ‘All in all, drupa 2016 far exceeded our expectations and confirms that our approach to business, with our customers and partners at the forefront of our strategy, is the right direction for Goss moving forward.’

Buyer power

The final attendance figure was down on the 314,000 visitors recorded in 2012, and even further from the 390,000 in 2008, which show organizer Messe Düsseldorf attributed to worldwide consolidation in the print industry. Werner Matthias Dornscheidt, president and CEO of Messe Düsseldorf, commented: ‘Customers – with very few exceptions – no longer come with large delegations or as part of a company outing to drupa. It is rather the top managers that travel to Düsseldorf today.’

A statement by MBO Group underscored this. ‘It has been shown that visitors to the show don't spend as much time there as they used to, but they are very well prepared and targeted in visiting relevant exhibitors. Visitors to drupa 2016 knew precisely what they wanted to see. The quality of the expert talks was correspondingly high. The deals drawn up at drupa were especially positive. In addition, the MBO Group was delighted to conclude deals during the trade show follow-up process.’

And while more than 50,000 fewer attended drupa show-on-show, the number of international visitors was up 16 percent to 76 percent. Furthermore, 75 percent of all visitors were said to be executives and in a decisive and/or co-decisive capacity when it comes to capital expenditure in their companies. As such, the official figures state that 54 percent of visitors came to drupa 2016 with concrete investment intentions and 29 percent placed orders during the show. 30 percent plan to place their orders after drupa, plus 60 percent reported finding new suppliers.

This helped the 1,837 exhibitors from 54 countries generate the positive results as already outlined, and whether an existing member of the labels and package printing supply chain or a new entrant.

Sales

Having launched to much fanfare at drupa 2012, Landa returned in 2016 with a stand double in size and a large amount of interest from the market to see where its technology is today. While still yet to be commercialized, demonstrations of its S10 and W10 presses drew large crowds, as did the debut presentation of its Nano-Metallography, shown integrated with an Omet XFlex X6 narrow web press. This technology is initially being aimed at the label market, and is detailed in full in L&L issue 3, 2016.

And despite still not being out in the market, Landa’s technology saw Reflex Labels sign on for the UK’s first W10 amid a reported order book pushing 500 million USD.

Other companies that debuted at drupa 2012 and returned in 2016 included Scodix and Highcon, which added 42 million USD of orders this year, positioning it to double its installed base in the coming months with dozen of new machines at customers in 11 new countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, and 100 sales proposals issued at the show. Scodix gained more than 100 new customers in 11 days, substantially growing its own customer base.

An entirely new exhibitor in 2016 was DataLase, who claimed to have generated a multi-billion pound opportunity pipeline for its in-line digital printing technology after welcoming more than 2,000 visitors on to its stand and securing a 'significant' number of new business leads and orders. DataLase CEO Dr Chris Wyres said: 'drupa has been a phenomenal success, providing the perfect platform to showcase our unique in-line digital printing solutions and the value they deliver to brand owners.'

Another first-time exhibitor at drupa 2016 was ebeam Techologies, which presented its electron beam curing technology directly on its own stand as well as with Omet and Uteco during live printing demonstrations on their respective stands. Sales and leads were being generated on its stand from both press manufacturers and printers investigating the benefits of electron beam technology to their operations.

The Sistrade stand received a similarly high level of attendance by several hundred companies from different continents, and from countries in the Middle East, Latin America, Northeast and Southeast Europe, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and others. At drupa, Sistrade launched the new version – S9 – of its MIS/ERP tool, which has been redesigned with a new intuitive and easy to use interface that allows user customization, choosing different fonts or background color, header bar, sidebar sections and the area where the specific information is displayed. The new Business Intelligence and SmartStatistics tools were presented also. Sistrade said its presence resulted in contacts with various companies in different countries, growth in the company’s brand recognition and an increasingly strong position in the market.

Derprosa-Ti described drupa 2016 as ‘the most successful event the brand has ever attended’, with the range of films presented attracting an ‘unprecedented’ number of visitors to its stand, while Uflex reported strong interest in its holographic products and offering, resulting in 600 ‘active queries’, with the highest interest in brand protection coming from Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Oman, followed by Latin American countries. In what Uflex described as ‘an encouraging first’, the African Subcontinent and CIS countries also expressed strong interest in anti-counterfeiting technology and products. ‘We have successfully closed several transactions and are in touch with many more prospective clients to bring them on board,’ said Pankaj Bhasin, executive vice president of the Holography business unit at Uflex.

Troika Systems picked up more than a million GBP (1.3 million USD) of realistic new sales revenue over the coming year during drupa , with 360-plus new business leads and orders.

Cartes and Prati saw deals concluded on their stands too, as did Re, with Luigi Colombo, the company’s operating director, commenting: ‘At the end of drupa we can assert that we met all out targets: many interesting visitors from many countries, a good interest both for new products and the well-known ones, and attention to the company's values and solidity. Everybody could see that 90 percent of pneumatic brakes installed on machines at the show were branded with the Re logo, while a lot of load cells, tension controllers and web guiding systems with our logo where also installed.’

Digital and conventional

Digital printing was a big talking point of drupa 2016, and as a result many of those exhibitors had positive things to report. Colordyne Technologies said the show was a ‘huge success’ for it, while Xeikon used the show to connect with its partners, peers and existing customers, and to meet new, future customers from all over the world. It benefitted from its first combined outing with Flint Group since the acquisition of the digital print specialist and creation of Flint Group Digital Printing Solutions.

Epson reported significant orders across its range of printers from companies visiting its stand, where the SurePress L-6034VW digital label press attracted significant attention with orders from around Europe. The show press is being delivered to Print-ID in Germany and the first in the UK was sold to Superfast Labels. The SurePress L-4033AW press proved popular too with a number of global sales made, including the US and Dubai.

For conventional press manufacturers, the response was just as impressive. Bobst saw sales at the show exceed both expectations and the total recorded at the company’s record-breaking drupa in 2012. And several thousand attendees visited Windmöller & Hölscher, while around 800 visitors travelled to the company’s in-house expo at its headquarters in Lengerich

‘The high volume of visitors is testament to the interest in our technological developments and the number of orders underscores the quality,’ commented Peter Steinbeck, Windmöller & Hölscher managing director.

KBA announced orders totaling a figure in the triple-digit million EUR range in its largest segment, sheet-fed offset, and Ralf Sammeck, CEO of KBA-Sheetfed Solutions stated: ‘We clearly surpassed the sales target we set ourselves and received many orders in all format classes from over 40 countries on all six continents.’

Claus Bolza-Schünemann, KBA CEO and president, added: ‘The atmosphere and willingness to invest on the busy KBA stand were exceptional.’

Ajay Tandon, president and CEO of the Engineering business unit at Uflex, commented: ‘The response for all the machines displayed, including gravure printing, lamination and slitting machines has been exhilarating.

‘Negotiations are on with clients to successfully close business enquiries that originated during drupa. What I particularly noticed about this year’s event is the fact that even though the footfalls were less in number, they were meaningful and with serious enquiries. Moreover, here we are talking about capital intensive packaging and converting machines, therefore decisions cannot be made overnight by the buyers.

‘We offer bespoke engineering solutions to our clients that require lot of deliberations and discussions. I am happy to say that while we have been able to close some enquiries already, talks are on with almost 50 global clients to bring them on board. Our team is busy giving drupa 2016 a strong sense of successful closure.’

Heidelberg CEO Gerold Linzbach concluded: ‘With drupa tailwinds we are on course for growth.’

Read L&L’s full review of label and package printing’s presence at the latest drupa in issue 4, 2016