Konica Minolta has made an additional investment in France-based MGI Digital Technology, seeing its stake in the company rise above 40%.
Konica Minolta and MGI formed an equity and business alliance in January 2014. On September 30, 2020, Konica Minolta acquired an additional stake in MGI, bringing the stake together with the existing stake to 42.3%.
MGI’s digital decoration printing machines use 100% inkjet heads manufactured by Konica Minolta and meet the need for high-value-added printing that highlights the appeal of products, such as foil stamping and embossing. MGI is also expanding into electronic circuit and other industrial printing.
By adding MGI’s partial varnishing, foil stamping, and other digital-output devices to its product line-up, Konica Minolta has increased its presence in the industrial printing market, which it positions as a growth business.
In 2016, Konica Minolta made a full-scale entry into industrial printing. Over the past four years, Konica Minolta’s industrial printing business has approximately doubled in size. During the Covid-19 pandemic, demand has temporarily stagnated in some areas of the industrial printing sector. Over the medium to long term, however, the company believes that demand for industrial printing will shift more to on-demand than ever before, and that the shift from analogue to digital printing will increasingly accelerate in order to respond to this change in demand.
In a statement, Konica Minolta noted, ‘The digitisation of post-processing will become increasingly important. Particularly, it is essential to expand the line-up of digital embellishment machines that make printed materials more appealing, and it is crucial for Konica Minolta to deepen the alliance with MGI, the first company in the world to commercialise digital embellishment printing machines.’
Konica Minolta is currently marketing the AccurioJet KM-1e, a 29in sheet-fed UV inkjet printing machine that can print packaging. MGI is developing AlphaJet, a system that enables integrated printing, decoration, and post-processing that can also be printed on corrugated products.
‘Konica Minolta will strive to increase the value of MGI and establish a strong position in the market by effectively launching AlphaJet, taking advantage of the customer contact it has accumulated through its global sales network and capabilities.
‘In the future, Konica Minolta aims to provide the ultimate digital system that can automatically complete all of the pre-process, printing, and post-process to the final product.’
Both AccurioJet KM-1e and AlphaJet feature in the Digital Labels & Packaging 2020 Inkjet Buyer’s Guide, included as part of the September/October issue
