Offset Printing
Sheetfed business exceeds expectations – web on target
Tuesday 17. June 2008 - KBA delighted with performance at Drupa 2008
For Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA), Drupa 2008 was a great success. Despite the challenging business climate in certain key markets, the attendance figures and the proportion of both foreign visitors and trade professionals exceeded all expectations. The ambitious sheetfed sales targets laid down by executive vice-president Ralf Sammeck were even surpassed.
The order intake was well up on Drupa 2004, with demonstrations of the world makeready champion in B1, the KBA Rapida 106 with its many unique features, meeting with a big response among members of the trade. The exceptional versatility of KBA’s new Rapida 105 also attracted a string of sales. In large format and among packaging printers KBA underscored its pole position in the global market with a succession of contracts. Top of the sales rankings were Germany, eastern Europe, China, North America and the Middle East. A number of orders – some of them unexpected – were booked from other EU states, Austria, Switzerland, South Korea, India, Latin America, North Africa and elsewhere.
The web press division landed contracts for a single-width KBA Continent and six Compacta commercial presses for 16 to 48 pages. For newspaper printers from Europe and overseas, KBA’s ultra-compact and highly automated Cortina and Commander CT presses were the focus of attention. A contract for a Commander CT was awarded by a German customer who does not wish to be named at this point. In coming months KBA anticipates further sales of these revolutionary presses as well as Compactas, and brisk post-Drupa business in sheetfed presses.