Rapidity in HP twin-investment

London-based print firm Rapidity is to install two HP Indigo 7600 colour presses in April this year as it looks to boost high-end digital work.

The investment follows what the company said was its best year of trading yet, recording £5.9m turnover in the 12 months to March 2013.

The two new presses will join an HP Indigo 5500, which was installed around 12 months ago, as well as a Xerox iGen3 and two Xerox Nuveras. Meanwhile the firm has taken the unusual step of posting its second iGen3 on ebay in the hope of achieving a quick sale ahead of the 7600 installations.

Rapidity managing director Paul Manning said the latest HP investment had been prompted by the success the company had seen since installing the Indigo 5500.

He added: "We’ve been running it for around a year now and it’s been a revelation. We put it in as a honey trap and basically if you ask if putting an Indigo in means you’re going to get more work? The answer is frankly, yes."

Manning said Rapidity’s "significant investment" in the 7600s would enable to company to be far more competitive and increase its offer to existing clients as well as target new markets, particularly high-end creative work.

"The new Indigos have a lot of features like enhanced productivity modes to let us print in three-colours, without black, which is fantastic because it runs faster and at a lower click rate," he added.

"The real advantage it gives us is on features like white inks. We aren’t going out there as pioneers but what we are doing is recognising that this is the best technology on the market so we’re embracing that."

Manning said that the investment did not signify a move away from Xerox but was simply "a recognition that HP Indigo gives us the edge for colour".

He said: "We are finding that every litho printer is putting in equipment and coming into our market with cheaper digital rates than ever for standard four-colour process work. So rather than join them and put in some cheap equipment and drive our prices cheaper we’d rather differentiate and be competitive."

The company increased turnover to nearly £6m in 2012/13 from £4.9m in 2011/12, which Manning said was in part due to its Olympic contracts and in part due to organic growth.

He added: "We expect the next 12 months to maintain our close to £6m turnover even without the Olympics and for the subsequent 12 months to breach £7m.

"As a company we are concentrating on being the best at digital print in London and focussing on our two other services: web-to-print and print management.

"We are trying to offer a complete service to our customers. We don’t think other printers in our area can compete with what we are going to be offering in this location and in our fantastic premises."