HP Indigo Press 5500

15/11/07

Photo products on the increase - HP have reported a strong growth in the photo-speciality market, with photo-service companies installing HP Indigo presses in ramp-up for the holiday season.

HP today announced continued sales growth of the HP Indigo press 5500 to customers in the photo-speciality market, with demand for photo printed products leading to a 100 percent increase in install base and impressions year-on-year for HP’s Indigo Digital Press photo business in Europe.

In 2006, the Western Europe photobook market was valued at €170 million growing to €370 million this year. The market will continue to maintain a high growth rate of 70 percent in 2008, reaching a value of €755 million by 2010.

“Over the 2006 Christmas holiday season, a record number of photo-speciality products were ordered and that record will be vastly surpassed this year-end,” said Jakob Bovin, EMEA Indigo photo business manager, HP. “This year, photo service companies are installing presses at an unprecedented rate in anticipation of the rapid rise in demand. We continue to see very strong acceptance for our technology in this market and have sustained our strong position with an estimated three out of four photobooks printed in EMEA produced on HP Indigo digital presses.”

The HP Indigo press 5500 offers a production capacity of up to 1.5m colour pages per month. The powerful HP Indigo Production Manager and Scalable RIP solutions offer photo-speciality printers the processing capacity necessary to handle the required volumes. Colour management and specific photo ICC profiles ensure colour consistency from job to job and from press to press.

HP Indigo Light Cyan and Light Magenta inks enhance skin tones, tone transition, shadows and enable greater colour saturation. The HP Indigo Photo Enhancement Server provides on-the-fly image sharpening, smoothing, JPEG artefacts reduction as well as improved contrast and shadow details.

The new HP Indigo UV Coater provides further value-adding options for photo-speciality printers. The coater is a near-line, user-friendly solution that applies UV coatings in gloss, matte and satin finishes at speeds up to 4,000 sheets per hour and gives customers a broader range of product choice.

These features and HP’s end-to-end offering to the photo-speciality market have led to HP Indigo presses dominating the photobook market with an estimated 80 percent market share of digital press installations for the production of photo-speciality items in 2007.

Among the companies that have recently installed HP Indigo press 5500s are:

Albumprinter, Den Haag, The Netherlands, has a total of 10 HP Indigo presses, HP Indigo press 5500s and HP Indigo press 5000s. Albumprinter uses the HP Scalable Rip Solution (HP SRS), a customised, automated workflow solution that enables users to centralise workflow management and feed jobs to multiple HP Indigo presses.

Spector Photo Group NV, Wetteren, Belgium has recently invested in two HP Indigo press 5500s. The company uses its new presses to produce high-quality, cost-effective photo-speciality products, including photobooks, calendars and greetings cards.

Foto.com, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, has recently installed two HP Indigo press 5500s to replace its existing technology and increase capacity for the year-end.

CeWe Color AG & Co. OHG, Oldenburg, Germany, supplier of photo-speciality products and gifts has a total of 22 HP Indigo presses comprising both HP Indigo press 5000s and HP Indigo 3050s, making it the largest HP Indigo user in Europe. The company uses its presses to produce a range of personalised collateral including photobooks, calendars, greetings cards, business cards and playing cards for consumers and professional photographers.

Koebcke GmbH, Berlin, Germany, has recently installed two HP Indigo press 5500s to meet increasing customer demand for personalised, high-quality photo-speciality gifts.

PhotoBox Ltd, London, UK, part of the Photoways Group of France, has recently installed an HP Indigo press 5500 to meet increasing demand for its photo-speciality products. The company operates the new press alongside its two existing HP Indigo press 5000s to produce photo applications such as photobooks, calendars, invitations, business cards and postcards.

Graphistudio, Arba, Italy, currently operates four HP Indigo press 5500s, for the production of a wide variety of photo-speciality applications. It specialises in the production of high-quality wedding, event and celebration photobooks.

Photoweb, Seyssinet, France, producer of photo-speciality products including photobooks, calendars, pocket albums and greeting cards operates two HP Indigo presses. It uses its HP Indigo press 5500 and HP Indigo press 5000 to provide offset quality print to its customers.

More information about HP is available at their website.

http://www.hp.com/

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