Russia's diversified digital textile printing market
Russia's diversified digital textile printing market
Published by Oleg Litvinov: November
Russia is one of the largest textile consumers in Europe. Products come from China, Turkey, Italy, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Belarus. The requirement of the local market is to produce high-quality garments and sell them quickly through the market.
The industrial system market in Russia is still taking shape, and the mechanical installation base is growing rapidly. However, the market is still far from saturated. The current COVID-19 crisis has changed the industry and accelerated digital transformation. In many industries, the proportion of online sales to total sales rose from 46% in 2019 to 62% in the first quarter of 2021. This is especially true for digital textile printers that have established online platforms. Companies dominated by the textile industry are trying to reorganize their supply chains, resume more production activities, and bring manufacturing operations back to China. Compared with traditional printing, digital printing offers many advantages, including speed, shorter delivery times, customization options, reduced costs, and flexibility.
Let's take a look at the numbers. The digital textile printer installed in Russia has become the basis for direct-to-fabric (DTF) and direct-to-garment (DTG) applications. In each sector, they are classified according to throughput.
Directly to the fabric
There are 44 industrial large-capacity DTF printers (not less than 1.8 meters wide, with a capacity of 150m2/h. and above) installed in Russia.
The leader in this field, with a high market share of 23 machines, is part of the MS printing solution for Dover Digital Printing. Among them, 17 are roll paper JP4 type, equipped with Kyocera nozzles. In Russia, MS printing solutions are sold through Textile and Technology (T&T) Moscow Company.
In second place is EFI Reggiani, which has 8 devices, including Russia’s first EFI Reggiani POWER 180 and POWER 240 digital printers, and EFI Reggiani NEXT (a cooperation between EFI and Russia’s TM Stensart). There is also an EFI VUTEk FabriVU sold by Prizmix.
Konica Minolta Russia sold three single-channel Nassenger machines for direct printing on fabrics, knitwear and textiles. The fourth one will be installed in neighboring Belarus. In addition, the three Homer printing machines of Shenzhen Homer Textile Technology Co., Ltd. have found customers in Russia, two of which use sublimation inks and one uses reactive inks. Kovcheg and Zenon sell a series of Homer digital textile printers in Russia. Two carpet printing machines and two HP sublimation printing machines sold by Zimmer have been sold by local distributor Printdetal.
One machine is installed in the Chinese Atexo sold by ALLART Service, Flora and Durst (Saint-Petersburg SignArt is the exclusive distributor of Durst) in Italy.
Among the 44 high-volume industrial textile digital printers, 30 are used for synthetic fabrics and knitwear, 13 are used for natural fibers, and only one uses pigment ink.
Fewer than 50 industrial medium-sized wide-format digital textile printers, including machines with a width of 1.8 meters or more, with a productivity of more than 75 square meters per hour. Among them are less than 10 Mimaki TS55-1800 machines and China Gongzheng GZS 3202 sold by Zenon. Therefore, in the first nine months of 2021, the installed base of this category has increased by 20%.
Commercial digital textile printers, at least 1.6 meters wide (productivity may vary-less than or higher than 50 square meters per hour), account for the largest share of DTF machines installed in Russia. In the past ten years, about 1,000 machines have been installed, 50% of which came from Mimaki through distributors Smart-T and RussKom, and 25% came from Epson, which were sold through a network of partners. The third place is Chinese brands, including ALLART Service's own brand COLORS, with widths of 2.2 meters and 3.2 meters respectively. Mutoh and Roland also have several facilities in Russia.
There are also dozens of installations for 1-1.6 meters wide commercial entry-level digital textile printers, and desktop printers less than 1 meter wide.
Of the total 24.5 million square meters of textile printing in Russia, 39% is produced on high- and medium-volume DTF machines. The remaining 61% was printed on models with lower production efficiency. In terms of inks, the market share of sublimation dye inks in Russia is 86%, while the global average share is 52%. Active ink accounted for 11%, and pigments accounted for only 3%. The most recently observed trend is investment in natural fabric reactive printing systems, such as the recently installed MS JP7 and Konica Minolta Pro8. Due to the use of water-free processes and environmentally friendly inks, the demand for coating printing is also growing. This requires considerably less equipment and a simplified workflow. The implementation of a regulatory framework that stipulates environmental requirements for printing production will further promote Russia's demand for pigment printing. The market for pigment inks for printing
