Fujifilm officially launched the Revoria and Apeos C digital presses and outlined its ambitions for the dry toner segment at an expansive launch event for customers, partners and prospects in London on 16 and 17 May, stating its ‘strong ambition’ to become a major player in this market.

Taku Ueno, senior vice-president, Graphic Communication division, Fujifilm Europe, described Fujifilm as ‘the industry’s best-kept secret’, saying that there has been ‘a massive shift to digital, a transformation of business, and Fujifilm wants to take its customers with it.’  Referring to the company’s strong record in the Asia-Pacific region, where it has over 40% market share in some segments, he acknowledged that for products of this type, Europe and the US ‘are new territories and we’re [the] latecomer,’ adding that the aim is to raise brand awareness and ‘become a major player as soon as possible. We want a key role.’

The company’s existing position in inkjet commercial print, thanks to the JetPress B2 inkjet line, allows Fujifilm to offer ‘the best of both worlds’, said Taro Aoki, head of digital press solutions, Fujifilm EMEA, while the company’s background in plates and imaging equipment puts it in a ‘unique’ position to support customers moving from analogue to digital print, or looking to implement hybrid systems.

Fujfilm’s route to market for the new machines is still being established, as it has only had the right to sell them in the UK since the beginning of April 2023, following the expiry of agreements that date back to the Fuji-Xerox join venture days. Channel partners for both the Revoria and Apeos lines are being sought, and these will be backed by both pre- and after-sales support from Fujifilm’s existing UK and European resource plus additional partners. The company’s experience with the machines in the Asia-Pacific region will also be available to local support operations.

Looking to the future, it is likely that further additions will be made to the new ranges, with Mr Aoki noting that the Apeos line ‘is addressing just part of the market’. No details were given for what might appear at drupa 2024, but Mr Ueno said that ‘ intensive discussions’ were taking place and admitting that as  the portfolio expands ‘we may run out of space, so will have to agree direction and priorities’.

Mark Lawn, who joined Fujifilm as head of print on demand solutions, Europe, in January 2023, confirmed that 65 Revoria machines had already been installed in Europe with ‘more going in every day’. He noted that they were supporting a wide range of applications, from lottery tickets to photobooks and that a number of customer sites had both the new toner press and JetPress B2 inkjets.

Mr Lawn also envisaged that the capabilities of the new machines, particularly the six-colour capability of the Revoria PC1120, would open new opportunities in digital print. ‘We are seeing digital print-driven/digital-only applications which offer more choices. We want to give the tools to satisfy or open new opportunities, in e-commerce, for example,’ he said.

In addition to presenting the key features of the Revoria colour and mono presses and the Apeos C Pro light production model, Fujifilm XMF Press Ready workflow was also presented. This print engine-agnostic platform can manage an ‘overview’ of work and route jobs to the best-placed devices, provided that they are driven by Fiery DFEs, and should be of interest to ‘anyone with a digital press’ in commercial, quick print or web-to-print applications.