In a series of customer engagement discovery events in Europe, US, and Asia, Kornit Digital celebrated customer success and shared its vision for direct to garment and digital textile printing. Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends (InfoTrends) contributed to and attended the event in Asia, where over a hundred Kornit customers from across the region (including China, Japan, and other Asia Pacific countries) were in attendance. The event was held in the company’s offices in Hong Kong from April 15th till April 17th.
Lead by Andy Yarrow, who was recently appointed President of Kornit Asia Pacific, the Kornit local team had provided customers with vital information on product introductions, success stories, and recent industry trends and analysis. During the event, the Kornit senior management team, which included Gliad Yron Executive Vice President Global Business and Omer Kulka VP Marketing & Product Strategy at Kornit Digital, shared their vision for the industry and the new product innovations by Kornit.
Figure 1: Gliad Yron Addresses Clients at Kornit’s Discover Event
In his comments, Gilad noted four mega trends that are driving adoption of digital printing technologies, namely:
- Impact of social media
- Self-expression and personalization
- The evolution of retail brands
- Textile printing environmental impact
In further comments, Gilad noted the tremendous impact that social media has had on fashion cycles. He cited celebrities who can instantly drive demand across the world, from the Kardashians in the US to Naomi Watanabe in Japan. These personalities, who typically have millions of followers, can shape markets, design, and ultimately consumption – particularly in apparel and accessories.
Self-expression was the second trend noted. Specifically, Gilad discussed how consumers desire for a unique personal look is influencing purchasing decisions that enable them to show their individual expression on the garments they wear.
These two are accompanied with the rapid migration of a new generation of shoppers from brick-and-mortar establishments to online shopping. This shift has caused many established brands to consolidate physical locations and migrate toward online selling. Additionally, some suppliers initiate businesses that only have online presence, taking advantage of purchase activated manufacturing strategies. These suppliers are unencumbered by the balancing act brick-and-mortar brands engage in between their stores and online business.
Gilad’s final focus was on the environment and, specifically, how textile printing can reduce its impact. Textile printing has long been considered resource intensive and recent regulations, especially in Asia Pacific, require suppliers to meet new strict environmental regulations. These coincide with an ongoing push by many international organizations to align and support a range of environmental standards for textiles – from raw materials to finished garments or décor products.
InfoTrends echoed the need to address these pressing key industry trends in our presentation at the event. We highlighted rich growth opportunities in the Asia pacific region from fabric printing to garment decorations. There are numerous signs that the textile industry is ready for a deeper digital transformation, including over $560 billion in apparel market value, over 20 articles of clothing per capita in Asia Pacific region, and the fact that 57% of customers indicate that clothing tops their list of items purchased online. These in addition to the ongoing demand for customization are driving the transition to digital printing to the tune of $13 Billion of digital fabric production, in Asia Pacific, based on the Keypoint Intelligence Digital Textile Forecast 2017-2022. In addition, in a global market where 54% of the over 10 Billion t-shirts purchased annually are printed using production direct to garment solutions, digital conversion makes sense to reduce time and costs per print.
Figure 2: 2018 Apparel Landscape in Asia
Source: Statista
Product Innovations from Kornit
At the event, Kornit debuted several new products in Asia Pacific the Kornit ATLAS, Kornit AVALANCHE POLY PRO and the Kornit PRESTO S.
The Kornit ATLAS was unveiled earlier in the year in the US. This solution boasts improved productivity at 160 items per hour (dark) , use of enhanced recirculated NeoPigment Rapid Ink in CMYKRG+White, quality output up to 1200 dpi. This system has improved workflow and technology that allow end users to maximize throughput with a range of innovations from wrinkle detection to an on-board production system display.
Figure 3: The Kornit Atlas
The Kornit AVALANCHE POLY PRO is the company’s latest innovation in bonding. Printing on synthetic fabrics has been challenging for previous generation DTG solutions, which were typically used for only cotton and cotton blends. Synthetic fabrics have always been challenging for digital printing for many reasons including adhesion, permanency, and dye migration. These fabrics where typically decorated with vinyl transfer, or screen print with dye blocking technology.
The new generation of Kornit NeoPoly CMYK + White inks, pretreatment, and newly tuned printer produces quality output up to 1200 dpi that has the definition of vinyl transfer whilst being able to produce full color images that will not deteriorate due to dye migration with a minimal surface build up. The system output 85 dark print per hour and 106 light prints.
Figure 4: Kornit Avalanche Poly Pro
Next, the Kornit team gave the audience a sneak peek at a direct to fabric printer, Kornit PRESTO. Already a design winner by IF 2019 (International Forum Design GmbH), this new textile fabric printer has an improved print speed of 450 M2/Hr, as well as a new generation of NeoPigment ink called Robusto that was developed with sustainability priorities that are ECO PASSPORT and GOTS positive certified.
Figure 5: Kornit Presto
InfoTrends’ Opinion
Kornit’s new technology and the company’s passion for its customer success is key enabler in the transformation the apparel and décor industries are undergoing. Mass customization enables consumers to acquire items that reflect their personality, and digital printing technologies such as those demonstrated by Kornit allow service providers to capture a growing opportunity. Digital textile printing and decoration are growing industry segments that continue to evolve. With advancements in workflow for designers and producers, as well as improvements in productivity and quality, brands and retailers will naturally gravitate toward digital printing as a means to meet their brand goals. The use workflow automation and digital printing will allow brands to address customer product demand while continue their support for a better environment.
