Johannesburg, 13 Jul 2016
Following the resounding success of drupa 2016, the massive printing industry event held in D"usseldorf, Germany, authorised Xerox distributor Bytes Document Solutions (BDS), says it is extremely excited about the future of the print industry.
The 11-day trade fair takes place every four years and hosts more than 1 800 exhibitors from 54 countries attracting more than 260 000 visitors. The Xerox exhibit themed, "Let the Work Flow," featured 160 printing applications, including personalised packaging and customised catalogue production.
Jenny Attewell, PSG and Wide Format Product Manager at BDS, says that drupa 2016 proves that the print industry is constantly re-inventing itself to offer a wealth of high-potential facets. She adds that the show highlighted some of the key areas the print industry is gearing up to take advantage of.
"For example, with a camera now in virtually every pocket, thanks to cellphones, the photo industry has dramatically changed, creating a wealth of new opportunities for print providers.
For one, the photo merchandise market is set to explode, with forecasted volumes of photo books, cards and calendars expected to reach some 814 million by 2019," says Attewell.
"The same goes for transactional printing - by 2019, more than 90 billion colour transactional document pages will be printed annually on digital devices in the US and Western Europe, which is a compound annual growth rate of some 6.8%, with a predicted print value of $13 billion."
Attewell is quick to point out that while the figures mentioned above are focused on the developed world, BDS certainly anticipates that similar trends will soon follow in the local market.
"From a BDS perspective, we took 17 of our key enterprise customers to drupa 2016, to give them a clear indication of what the future holds for the printing industry and what we will be focusing on moving forward. This gave them the opportunity to experience first-hand demonstrations of new and future Xerox technologies."
Among the products the clients had the opportunity to experience, she continues, were the Xerox iGen5, the industry's most productive digital production colour platform, the Xerox Brenva HD, the world's first cut-sheet production inkjet press, the Xerox Rialto 900, the world's smallest narrow web inkjet press and the Xerox Trivor 2400, the most productive digital press on the market. These solutions will soon be available in South Africa, adds Attewell.
"drupa is always a highlight for BDS, as it is all about unlocking potential, realising opportunities and showcasing innovation. In other words, it is much like Xerox itself," she concludes.
For more information on Xerox at drupa 2016, go to https://www.xerox.com/en-us/digital-printing/drupa-2016
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