Page 38 - Print21 July-August 2022

Technology
HP labels opportunity
Printers from Australia and New Zealand were among those on the HP Indigo VIP tour, and they were given
plenty of insight into the way markets are developing in labels and flexibles.
ayne Robinson reports.
blanket, and then transferred to the stock at 1600dpi, which is twice
the resolution of the HP Indigo 6K. The company says an HP Indigo 6K or 8K operator will be able to be trained to run the V12 in "a couple of months". HP believes young talent will be attracted to run the press.
Digital flexibles are a key market for HP Indigo, with its HP Indigo 25K press created to serve the market, which HP says is worth around US$110bn now and which will rise by a third in the next four years to hit US$143bn by 2026. It says three quarters of all flexible packaging jobs are in food, with meat, fish, poultry, confectionery and dried foods the big performers. HP says the big brands are moving from rigids to flexibles, because they believe it is better for storage, transport and for shelf appeal.
MARKET TO SURGE
With the focus on short-run, multiple skus, on demand production, colour, graphics and personalisation, HP says the market for digital flexibles is going to surge. In fact it says by ten times.
According to HP digital flexibles now account for just 0.5 per cent
of the entire flexible market, giving digital a 99.5 per cent growth opportunity. Nimrod Cohen, HP Indigo business manager told Print21 that, “It’s a blue ocean, and one
that early adopters are already exploiting.”
HP sees the classic pathway to digital flexibles starting with an
HP Indigo 6K or 8K, along with a laminator, slitter and pouchmaker, with a step to the dedicated flexible HP Indigo 25K the next move when the business is established.
Cohen cited the rise of ePac as a business that had identified the trend outlined above and had created a service for that market.
Label printers on the HP Indigo VIP tour certainly gained plenty of insight into opportunities and the way HP Indigo technology is being developed to meet those opportunities. 21
HP Indigo will send its new V12 120 metres a minute digital label press to beta testing in September, with
launch expected a year later, for a press that is targeting label runs of between two and seven kilometres, aiming to disrupt the market for labels that are currently printed flexo.
Ten V12 presses will be placed into beta print businesses in Europe and the US, with HP then taking around 12 months to test various applications and collate data. When the V12 is released onto the market it is expected to replace older flexo presses in customers' plants.
The 17-metre long V12 press
is a sizeable machine, full of the latest electronic and chemical engineering, and which will be able to be extended with non-stop feed and delivery, which HP is working with ABG to develop. It will be able to print in up to 12 colours, the company saying this means printers will be able to switch between jobs without having to change ink sets.
Labels21 joined hundreds of printers from around the world, including a sizeable number from Australia and New Zealand, along with Rob Mesaros, Mark Daws and Anthony Jackson from local HP supplier Currie Group, and Craig Walmsley from HP, who were in Israel at the HP Indigo VIP Customer Event – the first since the outbreak of
Covid. Amongst other presentations they heard Eli Mahal, head of
label and packaging product management, bring them up to date with the latest developments.
Mahal outlined HP Indigo’s market position, which he said was 68 per cent of the digital label market in
the mid-sized and above sector it operates in. He said HP sells two thirds of the 400+ label presses annually in that sector with its HP Indigo 6K and HP Indigo 8K. He also said HP Indigo label press customers were growing at 3.5 times the growth of the market overall, while HP Indigo flexibles press users were growing at 10 times the growth of the market. HP reckons that each HP Indigo 25K digital flexibles press generates an average of US$3m a year in revenue for the print business. The 300th has just been installed.
ROADMAP FOR GROWTH
According to Mahal, the global size of the label market is 28 billion square metres, with HP Indigo presses printing around 1.1 billion square metres of that. He outlined four key areas in HP’s roadmap
for the growth of its customers: sustainability, speed, automation and a wider applications range.
The new V12 sees the label stock go through a primer unit, then into the print engine, which has six stations each capable of doubling up, with the ink laid down onto a
BELOW Coming soon: 120 metres
a minute
HP Indigo V12 digital press
38 JULY/AUGUST 2022