Printing Innovation Asia Issue 4 2020
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Kornit Digital gears up for Japan We spoke with newly-minted general manager, Hisashi Tada, who joins Kornit Japan at its most critical time of growth in the wake of COVID-19. By Sha Jumari. Kornit Digital, one of the market leaders for industrial, digital textile printing technology, announced the appointment of Hisashi Tada as its new general manager for Japan. Tada has been in the printing and technology space for more than 20 years already, primarily in inkjet technologies. In that time, he has held various sales and management positions in multinational companies such as Océ, HP and Fujifilm. Tada joins Kornit from EFI, where he has held a position for the last three years. “I’m delighted to be here in an amazing company which is completely focused on providing the best solutions possible to help our customers grow,” said Tada. “The apparel & textile industry is one of great frontiers for digitalisation. The process of moving to digital gives us a lot of benefits such as sustainability, optimisation of the supply chain as well as reducing waste of both time and materials. We can
contribute to the health of the planet and provide healthy, sustainable growth for our customers.” Asia Pacific is expected to witness growth at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2019 to 2025 in terms of revenue. According to a study by Grand View Research on the global printed textile industry, the growth is on account of the increasing consumption of printed clothing in countries like Japan. “The textile industry in Japan, especially for direct-to-garment (DTG) is very strong. The great thing from Kornit’s
point of view is that we already have an excellent DTG customer base, which I believe still has huge potential for growth, and a pretty untapped roll to roll, direct-to-fabric (DTF) market,” said Tada. “Of course, with DTF there are several traditional digital technologies such as, reactive, acid and disperse, but pigment is emerging very quickly, and I believe that with Japan’s focus on sustainability and green technology this offers us a huge opportunity,” Tada added. Progressing in a COVID-19 World In 2019, Kornit Digital had a stellar year of growth in Japan. The company installed the most number of presses in the country for Asia, and was primed for further growth in 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world by storm, taking a toll on industries all over the globe. “I believe that with the current coronavirus situation, Japan has a great opportunity to
