Ricoh establishes thermal media business in India

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Ricoh Company Ltd said Wednesday that it will establish a wholly owned subsidiary responsible for thermal media and related business, in Mumbai, India on Friday.

Ricoh is developing, producing and marketing durable, high-value-added thermal paper and thermal transfer ribbons mainly used for barcodes which have earned a high share of the thermal media markets worldwide. RTM-AP will start production and sales of thermal transfer ribbons as well as the marketing of thermal paper through its own distribution network in India. RTM-AP will cover not only the Indian market, but the high growth Asia Pacific region in the future.

India is one of the fastest growing economies, and the rapid increase in consumer demand and purchasing power is evident from the large number of shopping malls that has sprung up across the country, some of them are on a par with the most advanced markets. The demand, and hence the scale of production of appliances, automobiles and various other consumer durables is increasing rapidly. This has resulted in huge demand for barcode labels, but there is a major variation in the quality labels used even in the best supermarkets.

Yasu Takashima, Managing Director of RTM-AP said, “Demand for high quality thermal transfer ribbons and thermal paper is expected to increase significantly in the future in fields such as foods, logistics, and production management. This leads to opportunities for Ricoh to provide products tailored to specific applications. Ricoh aims to grow its net sales of thermal media business in the Indian market by ten times in three years.” RTM-AP plans to launch the slitting operation of thermal transfer ribbons, followed by establishing production and sales systems in close collaboration with customers in India in the initial stage.