Drupa Sales Boost KBA in Second Half-year

The new high-performance Rapida 106, which at Drupa vindicated KBA’s claim that it is the world makeready champion in the B1 (41in) format, generated a high volume of sales, as did the new, versatile Rapida 105, which is especially popular in emerging economies. In large format and among packaging printers KBA underscored its position as the global market leader with a string of contracts, while the new Rapida 75 B2 (29in) press built by Czech subsidiary KBA-Grafitec also attracted a number of buyers. The web division sold several commercial offset presses to printers from Latin America and Denmark, along with two presses for printing newspapers and semi-commercials. Further orders are expected over the next few months, particularly for KBA’s revolutionary Cortina and Commander CT compact web presses. Top of the sales rankings at Drupa 2008 were Germany, Russia, Ukraine, North and South America, China, the Arab states, Italy and Scandinavia.