Prague, Czech Republic / After the international Drupa trade fair, a range of companies in the field felt that their participation at this "graphic art Olympiad" was a success. Participation at Drupa was also a success for Grafitec, which it can now confirm from specific figures.

After assessing sales data for the first nine months of 2004, Grafitec can announce unusually good results. The interim growth in takings for the given period is 40 %. "It's a great result. It's founded on the great efforts of our technicians, sales reps and all the company's employees", said Petr Skrla, CEO of the company, praising the results. However, Grafitec won't let itself be content with existing results and is intensively working further. Most notable is the fact that there has been a profound change in the share of individual printing machine format ranges in terms of takings.

"Yes, it's true, the Polly Prestige 74 for 52 x 74 cm printing format has the biggest share in the rocketing growth in takings. This range of printing machines is dominant in our sales in our traditional East and Central European markets and, above all, on the tough markets of Western Europe, the USA and Canada. At the same time we have entered a number of new and very important markets. The best example is Turkey, where our installation base will be five multicolour Prestige 74 printing machines by the end of the year", explained Jan Korenc, Sales and Marketing Director.

There are several key factors to this success. One of them is the somewhat enlivened market, but this would not be enough if Grafitec had not been prepared to offer its customers a very competitive product and quality services. Another important share in the growth can be attributed to the previously mentioned enlargement of the distribution network. We also mustn't forget the intensive and ambitious work with distributors in the areas of marketing, sales, customer care and application support.

About the company:

Grafitec is a medium size producer of SRA2 and SRB2 format sheet-fed offset presses. In the world there are about 4500 working printing machines in 40 countries. This company, with American capital, has a production company in the Czech Republic, which puts it in a strong distribution position in Europe. It has its own direct trade representation in the USA.

In July 2004 Grafitec signed an agreement with Presstek Inc. on the distribution of CtP Dimension Excel for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The agreement concerns both CtP itself and the Anthem and Applause printing plates. The CtP Dimension Excel solution with processing-free non-chemical plates provides an optimised system for high production, a clean environment and low costs.

If you are interested in further corporate and product information, please contact:

Phone: +420 494 672 200
Fax: +420 494 672 201
E-mail: jkorenc@kba-grafitec.cz