Shanghai-based Aura Designs Ltd is a leading manufacturer of textile and garment printing hardware and software solutions. Managing Director Vikram Saria speaks of the response received at ITMA Asia'18 held recently in Shanghai and the company's current and potential markets.
Please share details of your company.
We are a medium-sized company with more than two decades of experience in the textile industry. We set up our company near Shanghai around nine years back, specialising in digital textile printers and offer customised solutions for printing scarves, shawls and sweaters, all of which are niche segments. We are one of the few companies offering these features and are dedicated only to textile printing. It has always been our endeavour to launch something different from the conventional, working closely with our customers in the textile industry and engaging in research and development (R&D), due to which we are able to deliver many unique technologies.
Which technologies did you showcase at ITMA Asia'18?
We showed our Aura Smart, which is a garment printer using pigment inks and another was the Aura Nano Plus, which is a roll-to-roll fabric printer. We got a very good response for the garment printer. We were the first to launch this machine in China about 18 months back and have sold around 400 units. The Aura Smart reduces printing cost when printing on dark garments. The white part of printing is done through screen printing and the rest is done through the DTG printer. On the other hand, the Aura Nano Plus is our best-selling model, with an Epson printhead for the roll-to-roll segment. The cost of maintenance too is very less. We also displayed products for our new technology, where the ink penetration is very high and is used when printing shawls or scarves. This is a completely different project and we have successfully installed more than 10 of these worldwide.
To how many markets do you export and how important is the Chinese and Southeast Asian market for you?
We are exporting to around 23 countries. Till around 18 months back, we were not so active in the Chinese market. We started selling within China after launch of our garment printers. Our major export market is Eastern Europe. We also export to Egypt, Philippines and Thailand. This year we have targeted countries in South America.
Please share your company's plans for 2019.
We have some new and specialised products in the pipeline and hopefully we should be able to launch them in 2019. We will continue to concentrate in venturing into South American markets like Venezuela, Colombia and Peru. (HO)
Published on: 20/11/2018
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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