Some ten per sent of Agfa’s business snow comes from inkjet printing, which Dehing says represents about an eight per cent market share. Agfa though is pouring 50 per cent of its R+D spend into UV inkjet, clearly believing it will be able to develop both its volume and its market share.

PacPrint saw the global launch of Agfa’s latest UV wide format printer, the :Anapurna M2 which pumps out 23sqm an hour. Agfa launched another new printer last week at Fespa, the :Anapurna Mw, which has a pre and post print white ability. Dehing says some 13 per cent of Agfa’s wide format sale sin Australia are now to commercial printers, a figure it expects to increase significantly as printers look to add new revenue streams in the face of the economic downturn.

Agfa claims an 82 per cent market share of chemistry free plates, and used PacPrint as the worldwide launchpad for its new violet chemistry free plate, the N92VCF, for the newspaper market. Garry Muratore, marketing manager at Agfa says the N92 is the firsts tep in the roll out of violet chemistry free, which will include commercial plates.

Dehing also announced that Agfa was launching a new M-Press – its digital screen printing solution – which trebles the output of its predecessor, pumping out a massive 770sqm an hour. M-Press Tiger was far too big to be on the stand though so visitors have to be content with a scale model.

Muratore and Dehing dismissed any threat from Chinese plate manufacturers, saying that Agfa was being vigorous in its work to keep hold of its intellectual property, and pointing out that making a plate was only half the story, the logistics, complexities of plate sizes also proving problematic to the Chinese.

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