UVPrinter History and Future Prediction 4 ARTJET UV Printer

II. Why there are so many Chinese UV printer manufacturers_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

1. Electronic Board Software Provider_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

In Korea, if a UV printer development manufacturer wants to make an electronic board that fits a new print head, it must invest at least 80 million to 100 million won, and the development period alone takes more than 6 months, and verification takes 1 year.
For example, when InkTec Co., Ltd. developed the JETRIX UV Printer, the research lab staff included 2~3 electronic board engineers, 3~4 software engineers, 1 year to make the board when a new head comes out, and another year to create the software and debug it.
The time and labor costs are not small, and if a model is made and released on the market after 2 years, the head will be an old head, so sales of UV printers cannot be guaranteed.

However, there are specialized companies in China that provide boards and software.
You might think, ‘There are probably only 10 to 20 engineers,’ but there are at least 40 and up to 100 people working.
When a new head is released in Japan, the first place to hand over the technical data is the board software development companies in the UK and China.
With the data received from the head company, the board and software are completed in a short period of time through numerous engineers.

2. Printer Body and Parts Provider_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

When I was working at InkTec, the JETRIX UV Printer production team leader visited a Chinese manufacturer and printer parts company to outsource. And the story he told me was,

3. Inkjet printer manufacturers starting small_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

HandTop, which was briefly mentioned in Part 3, is a company founded by people who worked at Flora, which was mentioned in Part 2.
And another company founded by an engineer from Flora is Frommuk (I don’t remember the English name).

People from HandTop created another separate UV printer company,,,

Starting with about 10 people, it became a mid-sized company with 200~300 people,
And many UV manufacturers were created in the form of R&D personnel and key salesmen who were not satisfied with profit distribution establishing separate companies.

Since there was space to assemble the available boards, software, printer bodies, and parts in the market, and if you just found investors, you could easily manufacture inkjets,

There were many UV printer manufacturers in China in a short period of time.

1. Increasing competition and rising consumer expectations in China_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

There was a time when the Vutek UV Printer, an American product, had high sales in China despite its ridiculous price.
Since good quality and fast delivery could get a higher price from the end consumer, large-scale printing houses purchased the Vutek UV Printer despite its high price.
In a similar context, the OCE UV Printer, which boasted the best printing quality at the time, was also supplied to many printing houses.

Since large-scale printing houses used high-quality foreign equipment, the printing quality standards of the printing houses that purchased the UV Printer were raised.

UV Printer manufacturers that launched UV Printers in overseas markets and then withdrew had no choice but to focus on the Chinese domestic market,
and in this way, many UV Printer manufacturers in China are trying to match the quality standards of foreign equipment in order to win the competition.

2. Technology sharing and effort_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

In 2013, the G mask (feathering mask) technology of Skyjet UV Printer became a technology commonly used by all Chinese manufacturers two years later.
In China, boards and software can be purchased, and it is easy for engineers to change jobs, so technology sharing seems to have been rapid.

Investment in technology development is also active.
While talking to a Chinese friend, I found out that his company had used SwissQ equipment.
He said that the company invested 500 million won to study the equipment.

IV. Current market situation in China_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

1. UV Printer Sales in China_UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

2. UV Printer Marketability _UVPrinter History and Future Prediction

According to the Chinese dealer at the time of the meeting,

“Most Chinese UV Printer manufacturers do not have a margin for UV printer equipment, and they are selling because they have ink business.”

When Dropwatcher was exhibited at the 2017 KPCA exhibition, a Korean PCB exhibition, Docan (a Chinese UV Printer manufacturer), which I had only seen at the Chinese sign exhibition, was exhibiting PCB marking equipment.

Chinese marking equipment at the Korean PCB exhibition… It was really surprising. The Docan salesperson said,

“Since the price competition in the sign market is fierce, we are promoting the PCB marking sector as a new business division.”

Since we promoted a new business with PCB marking equipment in China in 2017…

In this highly competitive UV Printer market, each Chinese UV Printer manufacturer set their own direction in their own way, and we will look into what efforts they made next time.