HP sets sights on packaging market

The packaging market remains buoyant and will make up a larger part of HP’s business in the future, according to Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager of HP Indigo.

Bar-Shany said new dedicated packaging presses announced at a pre-Drupa press conference will help it achieve this aim. He said: ‘Packaging is very healthy and growing fast. We see packaging as a very different market to any other. It is growing dramatically in China and Brazil and Latin America but also in mature markets because of more differentiation and consumers are still increasing their packaging spend. Packaging follows GDP and we think it will in the future, so our focus on packaging.
 
‘Labels and packaging is 20 percent of our business. Today we see a big opportunity for flexible packaging and cartons. You need the workflow and finishing. At the moment you can’t do short runs with flexible packaging – you have to deal with lamination and high-speed flexo/gravure machines.
 
‘Today we have the ability of the WS6600 to handle synthetic materials. We have the Enhanced Productivity mode which increases productivity by 33 percent by printing with four colors instead of three, and taking out the black. The print quality is still very good and better than our competition. It is already being used by our customers printing for top global brands.
 
‘Also we introduce Secure Pack for pharma and security applications. The HP SmartStream labels and packaging print server is powered by EskoArtwork. It will include authorization management, print restrictions, proofing mode and automatic record keeping.’