apppexpo 2013

Trade Show APPPEXPO 2013

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Trade Show

APPPEXPO 2013Shanghai

September 2013

Nicholas Hellmuth

Part I

The arrival of Durst and Swissqprint at APPPEXPO is documentation that this giant trade show is now much more than just the largest Chinese printer expo. The presence of Durst and Swissqprint certify that major international brands also recognize the value of exhibiting here.

Naturally HP, efi VUTEk and the other big international brands are looking for Chinese print shop owners and managers. Actually when I visit Chinese print shops I frequently see international brands of printers (not just Chinese brands).

But the real value of the presence of all the international brands at APPPEXPO in July is that now distributors and print shop owners from USA, EU, UK, Middle East, Africa can find everything they need in one single venue: products from Korea, Taiwan, China, North America, Europe and the Middle East.

APPPEXPO has now developed far beyond just being a Chinese printer, ink, media, and signage expo. APPPEXPO has 300% more printer brands than DRUPA; and so many more CNC router, CO2 laser engraver, ink and media brands than DRUPA there is no comparison.

This PDF is Part I of our coverage. Part II only requires that you click on Subscribe button (Part II is also free). Part II shows overviews of all five west halls, and all north halls. So if you did not have time to visit these other halls, this photo essay will be useful. The East halls are in the separate FLAAR Reports on LED signage: traditional and digital (LED screens).

Then (in Part II) we show photos of all three entrance halls: 1, 2, and 3. Most people tended to use the south entrance hall (Entrance 1). So you might like to see the other entrance halls also.

We show in part II a comparison of good solid color saturation and the “weakest color at recent expos.” It is curious why a printer or ink manufacturer would present inadequate color samples in their booth, but this is typical of every expo.

Simply click on Subscribe, and you will receive Part II.

APPPEXPO is now a major international expo

Pablo, Estefani, Maria Renee, Nicholas, Flor de Maria started at the expo two days before it opened, and continued all four days (and worked each night also).


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APPPEXPO was successfulEven though this is a giant expo, they did not waste everyones time and money by attempting a 5-day expo: the expo was more intelligently four days (three full days and one final morning). Yes, at all expos in China, the last day is incomplete (booths unfortunately start closing down even before noon). But APPPEXPO organizers definitely deserve praise for not attempting a 14-day or an 11-day or even a 5-day event. Four days is much better.

Here are crowds on the first day.

This year there were definitely more people from around the world than last year. In 2012 most print shop owners went to Drupa, so attendance was down at other expos. Now, in 2013, there is no more Drupa for a while, so attendance is up.

Plus, APPPEXPO offers 80% of the UV printer brands who were at Drupa; I bet 90% of the solvent brands. PLUS, another 200% more brands than Drupa ever dreamed of. In other words: APPPEXPO offers so much more wide-format than Drupa there is almost no comparison.

As more people around the world learn about what APPPEXPO offers (better than Drupa), more print shop owners and distributors from Europe, Australia, Canada, USA, Mexico, Central America, South America, Oceania, India, Middle East will continue to cause attendance at APPPEXPO to rise.

The management of APPPEXPO told us that many of the foreigners attending this year were new, that is, had not attended a previous venue of APPPEXPO. This is partially a result of systematic FLAAR Reports used as a preview every week in the months before APPPEXPO.

It was gratifying to learn about this statistic (of so many foreigners being first-time attendees here). This documents that the FLAAR Reports, in our unique style and content, are a good way to inform the world about a trade show which is worth visiting.

We look forward to returning to APPPEXPO 2014 and are already preparing our previews (in case you missed the expo this year in 2013).

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APPPEXPO 2013

Textile Printers

Any report which is free, will be sent you once you Subscribe.

To request an invoice for TRENDs level, write us at [email protected]

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There were so many textile printers that we will have special separate reports on this topic. But in advance we can mention TWINJET and HongJet.

FLAAR had a full-time textile printer specialist at APPPEXPO so we will be presenting lots of information on textile inks and printers in subsequent FLAAR Reports.

mailto:[email protected]

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UV-Cured Printers

TWO of us worked four days making a detailed inventory of every UV-cured printer at this expo. We started the day before the expo even opened. There were more brands and models of UV-cured printers than at every expo in UK and EU put together.

There were more brands and models of UV-cured printers here at APPPEXPO than at every printer expo in all of USA, Canada, and Brazil put together. Now you know why it took five of us to record the key brands at APPPEXPO, with two working exclusively on UV-cured printers.

In this initial report we present a sample of the brands here.

Dilli

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VUTEk

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SMATCHMark Ma and Nicholas in the booth of SMATCH uv-cured printers.

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Smatch UV

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UV-cured inks

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Inkjet Inks

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Media & Substrates

Our goal is to add a new focus-category on media and substrates to each FLAAR coverage of a major expo. Last year we added special coverage of Aluminum Composite Material (ACM and ACP). This summer we are adding wallpaper media. We already have covered PE and honeycomb sandwich board (Kraft-like paper in a corrugated or honeycomb structure, as a printable rigid material).

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ARIA (PE) in the booth of REVOTECHLast year ARIA had their own booth in W6, a temporary hall to handle overflow (this year overflow was moved into Hall N1, which was an unpredictable location for any printer company because people went to halls W1, W2, W4 and W5 for printers).

ARIA brochures were available in the booth of REVOTECH, in W5.

The long-term goal of ARIA is to demonstrate how well it prints on PE, and which printers can handle PE well (UV-LED cured as the best example). We will later have reports on how PE can be handled by latex printers.

You can contact ARIA by writing [email protected]

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Aluminum composite material (ACM, ACP)

Aluminum (aluminium) composite material (panels) can be used for architecture and for printing (or for mounting, as a more rigid replacement for foamcore, which has the bad habit of bending, since it is cheap). So there will be a separate FLAAR Report on aluminum material.

It is worth pointing out, that if you missed APPPEXPO, a good place to see many diverse brands of ACM and ACP is Sign Istanbul in November. So we look forward to having the FLAAR team flown to Sign Istanbul in late November 2013.

Wallpaper

Every trade show we will be adding a new category for a separate report. Since I noticed several booths focusing on wallpaper material, we will have a separate FLAAR Report on wallpaper and wall covering media and substrates.

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Honeycomb sandwich board

We have a separate FLAAR Report on honeycomb sandwich board. In the meantime we show some samples here.

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Graphic Design:Booth Design,Overhead Banner Design,Print Sample Design

The most photographed booth of the entire five west halls was clearly the one made from Honeycomb material, the one with a classical Chinese temple architectural theme.

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CNC Routers, CO2 Laser Engravers

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Solvent Printers

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Location, location, location

Lots of printers in W1 and W5. A number of printers in W2. W3 and W4 mostly inkjet media and substrates. So printers are concentrated by being in the halls next to the main entrance (W1) and near the secondary entrance (W5). W5 is nearest the METRO entrance (though there is a metro station you might mistakenly get out from at the W1 end of the expo area).

If you were a printer company and stuck in Hall N1 you would get cross traffic (from W halls towards East Halls. But best location for printers, inks, and media is the west group.

Flatbed cutters were in north halls.

I walked through every single hall, but spent 97% of my time in Halls W1, W2, W3, W4, and W5. I went to N1 to see the 3D printers of Mootooh, and was surprised to find about four printer brands in this hall.

We have an overview of each hall in the second general summary of APPPEXPO 2013 SUBCRIBE (Free)

Who was present? Who was new? Who was absent?

Two brands have almost never exhibited internationally were both quite visibly present this year.

Two major international brands of UV-cured printer were totally absent. Another non-Chinese brand (not “major”) was also totally absent.

Two major international brands of UV-cured printer were present at APPPEXPO for the first time. Another international brand (albeit Made in China) was present for the first time. So for every brand which was absent in 2013, it was completely replaced by another brand of comparable stature.

In other words, if you did not exhibit this year, you lost your market share to your next competitor! All this we discuss in the UV-cured printer TRENDs level Subscription.

To request an invoice for TRENDs level, write us at [email protected]

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Overhead hanging banner design

Human Digital had an innovative hanging banner design. At FESPA London we photographed about 50 overhead logo banners; here at APPPEXPO we photographed several dozen so will have a special report on these. It is amazing the difference between a good logo banner, a wimpy logo banner, and a logo banner whose size, shape, and design is not adequate to attract attention.

Since we at FLAAR specialize in graphic design, we like to help manufacturers and distributors to improve their booth design.

Chinese style decorations in boothsI must admit that I really like traditional Chinese style decorations (and the favorite red colors of China). A good example are the hanging lantern-like decorations of one booth.

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COLORJETOverhead hanging banner design

ULTRA FLEXOverhead hanging banner design

INKWINOverhead hanging banner design

efiOverhead hanging banner design

Examples of good overhead booth designs. Plus there will be an entire additional report. Ask [email protected] to invoice you for the additional reports.

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China Sign Association of Equipment Suppliers, CSAThere are many trade organizations in China: of printer manufacturers and diverse other groups. Here is the booth of one association. We have seen their trade magazine at earlier expos in previous years.

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Other trade magazinesWe try to list all the trade magazines at each expo. However with over a dozen exhibit halls it is difficult to find all the trade magazine booths. But we can show that of SM Media.

Here are samples of issues of Korean Sign Magazine in the booth of POP Sign Magazine Korea. (one of several people of POP Sign whom we know is Jude Kim).

Other Trade ShowsKOSIGN has a booth at many international expos. We at FLAAR would enjoy visiting KOSIGN, but since we are hosted for other expos, so until we can be hosted for KOSIGN we have not been able to do any FLAAR Reports on KOSIGN.

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MEDIA EXPO (India)

A large distributor in India flew me to a major printer expo in India about 14 years ago. But otherwise FLAAR has not written about any of the printer trade shows in India, since unless we have both our technical writer and myself, it is not realistic to write about an expo.

Hospitality in booths is always appreciatedFive of us from FLAAR Reports flew around the world to Shanghai to be sure that we could cover this giant printer expo. Due to the size of APPPEXPO it took five of us to take notes and photographs.

FLAAR Reports are avidly read throughout the wide-format inkjet printing industry in China. Sales reps, managers, engineers, and CEOs read the FLAAR documentation on trade shows and projects. A lot of our reports are used as training for new employees.

So when we are at an expo, we appreciate when the manufacturers assist our writers and photographers. In the list below we wish to express THANK YOU to the following companies.

We apologize if your company is not listed; we have separate lists of ink companies, separate list of media and substrates, and separate list of printer manufacturers (in other forthcoming reports on APPPEXPO). The list below is primarily the companies

• Where they have brought us to their factory or headquarters (so we know the company personally and know the staff). We show in bold the companies where we have visited their factories and/or headquarters.

• Companies whose managers or owners or CEOs have really assisted our team at trade shows both in China and in expos where we see them elsewhere.

AT Inks (Saurabh and Neerav Goswamy)

China Signs (Sign in China, Mr Liu and his team)

Comeink (Susana Chan spoke both Spanish and English, our languages at FLAAR)

Crownland (Anna Luo, Chairman)

DGI (Kwan-Soo Choi and Dong-Ho Choi)

Dilli (Geun-Soo Choi, Yun-Hee Choi, Yong-Hak Kim, Dae-Bok Park, Kyu-Hyun Park, Jin, Hwang, S.

Cheong,)

DIP Printing Technologies (Edmond Fung and Simon Lin)

EFI VUTEk (many capable executives and managers)

Fujifilm Dimatix Spectra (James Gill, Howard T. Baldwin, Russ Brown)

GATEWAY (Lawrence Chung, General Manager)

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GLM (Dr Ben Zhou, Ella Shen, Huang Jiang and their

team)

HK Digital

Hongsam (Ink) (Guosheng Qin, CEO; Matthew Sun,

Thomas Zhou, and all the capable sales reps for each

part of the world)

Human Digital (Mack Xin, CEO;)

IMATEK (Fortuna Imatec) (Samuel Chen, General

Manager).

Inkwin (Jack Wang, Sunny, Shiny and their

colleagues)

Jetbest (Dr. Alex Lu, Lionel Li, Amy Chang)

Hanze Electrical (Zhengfeng Xu and his colleagues)

JHF (Qianping Shi, Donna Wong, and their team)

Kongsberg (Martin Wong)

Konica Minolta (Toshihiro Nakai, Hiroyasu Endou and their team)

Maxunion (Benjamin Lee, CEO)

Meijet (their key China and US team)

MingYang (Oliver Zhang, Manager)

Gongzheng (we appreciate their hospitaly at Chinese expos for years).


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Mootooh (Sola Gua, Sara, Jessie and colleagues)

Neolt distributor (Wendy)

Re-Board

REVOTECH (Lao Hon Neng, President and managers).

S+C, Shining Century Banner Material Co. (Betty Ma)

Sign Istanbul expo organizers (Zekeriya Aytemur)

Sky Air-ShipSMATCH (Mark Ma)

STS Inks (the entire team)

Tiger Tech (Diana, General Manager, Cathy, Sales Engineer)

TWINJET (Garie Chow)

SAM INK (the entire team)


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Flor de Maria at Inkwin booth, with Sunny (who speaks excellent Spanish in addition to fluent English).

A good example, the following booth personnel were courteous and helpful in receiving Flor de Maria Setina into their booth, and answering her questions. (She is Office Manager, FLAAR Reports). Although FLAAR has been working in China for six years, we try to send one new person every year to experience China; so this was the first Chinese expo visit for Flor de Maria.

These are companies which we appreciate providing Flor de Maria Setina with information about their products at APPPEXPO:

Beauty Color (Jabby Wu)FH-Union International (Steven Zhong)Gateway Technology Industry Co., Ltd. (Cherrie)Longier Digital Technologies Co., Ltd. (Teresa Tang)Xenons Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (Sophia Wang)

All of us at FLAAR appreciate the hospitality of the expo organizers: Shanghai Modern International Exhibition Co., Ltd.Shanghai Gray Exhibition Co., Ltd

Sign-in-China booth (W1, there was a much larger China Signs booth in another hall).

China in general is a friendly place to visit. If you missed this 2013 expo, we hope to see you in Shanghai in July 2014.

We also hope to see you at SGI 2014, Sign Middle East (Dubai, the first international expo of the year). And FESPA 2014 in Germany. Plus SGIA 2013 in Orlando, and Sign Istanbul to round up everything for 2013: the last expo of international rank in this year.

At each trade show we meet hundreds of managers, executives, sales reps and booth personnel. Sorry there is not space to name each one, but we show a sample here with some of the business cards (to show the company logos). Altogether we have about 3000+ business cards from meetings at expos just in the last several years.

We also meet additional hundreds of print shop owners and distributors from around the world, in the aisles as we are walking-the-aisles inspecting booth displays. We also run into manufacturers of inks, printers, media, software, cutters and other wide-format workflow products out in the aisles (people who are visiting the expo). There is not space to list them, and often our meetings are under NDA.

But the point is that visiting APPPEXPO in China, FESPA in Europe, and ISA, SGIA, and GOA in USA are essential if you are part of the wide-format inkjet industry.

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Recognition of the hard work of booth attendants At many booths we do not yet know the owners or executives, so we at least learn about the company from the bright young booth attendants. Here we list four who did a very good job.

Shanghai Brightness Electronics Technology (Tina)Shanghai Smart Digital Technology (Esme)Shanghai Unisign Industrial Material (Shandy)Shanghai Xuanrui Technology (Zoey)

There are hundreds of booth attendants who provide us brochures and answer basic questions. Sorry that we are not able to list each one individually. We appreciate their help, and in return we send each one this FLAAR Report at no cost.

A capable hard-working sales rep, Zoey Xiao, with a client in her booth.

A good example of the capability of the booth attendants is one in the booth of Sam Ink. She was with an associate company in the corner of the booth. Here you can see her at the right of the booth. Too many booth personnel waste company time by being on their cell phones texting friends all day (instead of working). But this booth attendant was working the entire morning and the entire afternoon (I had several meetings in the Sam Ink booth, so I could judge her work ethic). I apologize that I do not have her business card so can’t name her or her company.

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Preview of TRENDs level FLAAR ReportsWhich brands had the largest booth?

Which brands had tiny, nearly insigificant booth?

Which brands used to have large booth now only have tiny booth?

Which brands have expanded?

Which brands are now 100% UV-cured: no more solvent.

Which brand is now 100% textile: no more UV-cured!

How many different printheads are used in UV-cured printers?Which printhead brand is losing market share, rapidly?Which brand was popular seven years ago and now 95% of UV-cured manufacturers have dropped this brand?Now that Epson DX5 printheads are not blocked by Epson itself, what printheads are replacing it?

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If you have the TRENDs level reports from FLAAR you have an advantage over competitors.

You can ask to be invoiced for [email protected]


This report has been licensed to Shanghai Modern International Exhibition Co., to distribute, since they are the organizers of APPPEXPO (Advertising, Print, Pack & Paper Expo), Shanghai. But this report has not been licensed to any printer manufacturer, distributor, dealer, sales rep, RIP company, media or ink company to distribute. So if you obtained this from any company, other than APPPEXPO, you have a pirated copy.

Also, since this report is frequently updated, if you got your version from somewhere else, it may be an obsolete edition. FLAAR reports are being updated all year long, and our comment on that product may have been revised positively or negatively as we learned more about the product form end users.

To obtain a legitimate copy, which you know is the complete report with nothing erased or changed, and hence a report with all the original description of pros and cons, please obtain your original and full report straight from:

www.large-format-printers.org.www.apppexpo.com

Your only assurance that you have a complete and authentic evaluation which describes all aspects of the product under consideration, benefits as well as deficiencies, is to obtain these reports directly from FLAAR, via www.wide-format-printers.NET.

Copyright 2013

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