Over the course of the past few years, KBA Digital & Web has adjusted successfully to the drastically shrinking market for new newspaper presses and in the meantime places an additional focus on growing market segments such as service or digital, functional and packaging printing. Even so, the role of the world's leading supplier of newspaper press lines for the upper and highest performance classes remains undisputed, and the modern portfolio presented by the manufacturer of the first ever rotary newspaper press is evidence that KBA has no intention of surrendering this position. The last 12 months have seen orders received from Mittelrhein Verlag in Koblenz for a further Commander CT 6/2, from Mitteldeutsche Zeitung in Halle and Druck- und Pressehaus Naumann in Gelnhausen for two Commander CL presses, and from CPI on the island of La Réunion for a waterless KBA Cortina. In addition Coldset Printing Partners in Paal-Beringen, Belgium, placed an order for two double-width Cortina presses in mid-December 2016.

Stefan Segger, new sales director at KBA Digital & Web: “Against the background of the market developments in newspaper printing, we are quite satisfied with the orders received. Further projects are in the pipeline and decisions are expected soon. When it comes to new investments, customers are currently most interested in flexible presses with practice-oriented automation, and we have built up an excellent reputation for precisely that with our trio of Commander CL, Commander CT and Cortina. All three presses are new developments launched since the turn of the century, and we are already counting more than 60 installations in Europe, America and Asia.”   

This year, a Commander CL went on stream at Aschendorff in Münster, and a second press of this type will be starting production at Oppermann Druck und Verlags-GmbH in Rodenberg during December 2016.