Post Drupa, Indian printers have been purchasing the latest and best of multicolour sheetfed presses. As has been the case, Mitsubishi leads the way with 71 units installed. They are followed by Man Roland. Together, the three major European manufacturers Man Roland, Heidelberg and KBA have sold 100 units, approximately.

Man Roland has had a good year. Besides the installations in Bangalore, it has sold two R900 4-colour presses to Ajanta. In addition to Mitsubishi and the Germans, Adast and the erstwhile Grafitec of the Czech Republic have sold 30 units. It is expected that Indian printers may import around 275 new units this year.

Some of the big installations of the year have been KBA bagging the prestigious Parksons Packaging order with a 6- colour plus coater with interdeck UV and a full Densitronic closed loop colour control system. There was the first 6- colour with interdeck UV and coater installed in the country was the Roland 706 at International Print-O-Pac in Noida in the last quarter of 2004