HanGlory, the Chinese manufacturer of wide format, flatbed UV and industrial inkjet presses was quick to take half of Xerox' allocated area in a prime spot of Hall 8b for drupa 2024 starting next May. Since bursting into drupa 2000 with the iGen digital press, Xerox has been a major presence at major trade shows and will still exhibit at Printing United, USA.
US industry intelligence source www.whattheythink.com reported Xerox' withdrawal earlier this week. Speculation that they would not be at Dusseldorf next May/June was rife after Xerox' name failed to appear on the exhibitor list and floorplan.
At the last drupa in 2016, Xerox occupied around 2,000 square metres of stand space in the high technology digital Hall 8b. Other exhibitors in this Hall include Konica Minolta and Fujifilm, Xerox' former joint venture partner in Asia-Pacific as FujiXerox. The partnership came to and end following Fujifilm's rejected takeover offer and fraught legal battles, initiated by major Xerox shareholder and corporate raider Carl Icahn, who later also tried to takeover HP (drupa's largest exhibitor) and failed.
Sabine Geldermann - drupa director
Sabine Geldermann, director of drupa and Portfolio Print Technologies at Messe Düsseldorf, told the UK's printweek publication: “Xerox has decided to cancel its participation in drupa for next year. This is a decision we regret very much. However, some of the space previously occupied by Xerox has already been taken, and we are very confident that we will be able to reallocate this much sought-after spot in the near future."
Half of the Xerox space has been snapped up by the fast growing Chinese manufacturer HanGlory, represented in ANZ by Kissel+Wolf, who recently installed a Hanway HiJet 2500 2.5 metre inkjet press at custom packaging house, Pakko of Queensland - and has also installed several Handtop flatbed UV machines nationally.
The rest of ex-Xerox stand area has been split up into smaller stands and is expected to fill very soon. over 1,150 exhibitors have already signed up, after the 2020 show was postponed because of Covid. Drupa has therefore missed one edition for the first time since its establishment in 1951 - although the cycle has sometimes been 5-yearly. and even 3-yearly.
Xerox has shrunk to basically a North American/European company since the failed Fujifilm takeover. At that time, its shares were valued at USD$39 each in the deal. They closed at USD$15.80 in New Your yesterday. The FujiXerox breakup deal handed Asia-Pacific and Oceania - the world's most high-growth markets - to Fujifilm.
Drupa 2024 will take place at Messe Düsseldorf from Tuesday 28th May to Friday 7th June 2024.
Tickets are now on sale or can be reserved on THIS LINK
Sadly, the traditional free public transport previously included with drupa passes no longer applies and tickets must be purchased separately.
