"Our flagship model is the Speedmaster CX 104 , which we manufacture in China to the same high standards as in Germany. It’s the ideal press for dozens of customized configurations, a key requirement in the Chinese packaging market. Its predecessor, the Speedmaster CD 102/CX102, was already well-regarded, but the Speedmaster CX 104 takes flexibility and configuration options to a new level.
In premium segments like cosmetics, tobacco, liquor, and high-end consumer goods, print buyers care most about how packaging adds value to their products. The packaging must grab attention, reflect the brand image, and stand out from competitors. That means printers need a process capable of handling 6 to 8 spot colors with excellent stability, plus a wide range of special applications: coating effects, metallic finishes, embossing/debossing, and inkjet features like QR codes.
In the past, Chinese customers typically installed 7- or 8-color presses with inline coating and relied on multiple offline machines, such as hot-foil stamping, sheetfed gravure, screen printing, or inkjet to complete the job. This setup was cumbersome, time-consuming, space-intensive, and generated more waste. Over the past two decades, we’ve worked closely with customers and our headquarters to develop specific configurations that meet market needs, enabling everything from subtle matte-gloss contrasts to bold metallic finishes in a single pass.
Most of our customers serve the domestic Chinese market, which demands high quality and strong visual creativity. Even in segments like pharmaceuticals, food, and household goods, we’re seeing more demand for packaging printed on special substrates, metallized boards, and with matte-gloss effects. Many of our customized Speedmaster CX 104 presses are used for healthcare products, chocolate boxes, and even toothpaste packaging. This is where the Speedmaster CX 104 truly shines: it’s built for sophisticated jobs and perfect for differentiation.
"The Speedmaster CX 104 is truly ideally suited for these highly customized, complex setups, and it outperforms the competition. Some presses focus purely on productivity, others on special effects. But none combine productivity and flexibility the way the Speedmaster CX 104 does, and that balance is essential for our customers.
But our offering goes beyond the technical features of the press itself. Another key factor is that at HEIDELBERG, we are very close to the market and to our customers - and we listen carefully. When customers bring us new ideas or when new trends emerge, we assess whether our existing solutions can cover those needs. If not, we pass the feedback straight to headquarters and quickly gain their support.
Let me share one example from a customer in the tobacco industry. In China, about 90% of cigarette packaging is printed on metallized board. In 2008/2009, Jinjia Group asked us to deliver a perfectly smooth, fully opaque white layer on this material, something normally hard to achieve with a sheetfed offset press (*). To make this possible, they required us to add an extra offset unit in front of the existing LY module.
To meet Jinjia’s request, we at HGES developed a special Speedmaster CD102-1+LY-7+L configuration and sent it to our R&D headquarters for review. The decision came quickly, HEIDELBERG agreed to build it. It wasn’t an easy call, but it paid off. Competitors had received the same request, but their presses either couldn’t meet the specific requirements of Chinese cigarette and high-end packaging, weren’t suited to these applications, or their product management was too slow to respond. That’s why we won the business.
After the first installation, Jinjia purchased nine identical machines over the next decade, and more than 20 similar models were sold to other cigarette printers in China. Since then, a sheetfed offset press starting with a 1-LY configuration has become almost standard in the Chinese tobacco industry.
And there are many more cases beyond the 1+LY setup. Listening to customers and responding quickly remain the two most important success factors behind our leadership in the Chinese packaging market.
I see three clear advantages:
"Of course. 'Solid' areas are large, uniform fields of color that require perfectly even ink coverage. “Screening” uses tiny dots of varying sizes to create gradients and detailed images. In Chinese packaging, it’s common to see both on the same product, for example, a cigarette pack with bold solid backgrounds alongside fine imagery or gradients. The Speedmaster CX 104 handles this mix with exceptional consistency, which is not easy to achieve."
"It depends on the customer’s size. Generally, the larger the print shop, the more likely they’ll invest in tailor-made presses for specific applications. Many big players operate multiple Speedmaster CX 104 presses across different locations.
As I mentioned earlier, Jinjia Group is a great example. With plants across China, they began working with us back in 2009 to develop a unique 11-unit machine with seven coating towers. Over time, they installed nine of these presses. As their production requirements expanded, we co-developed a 16-unit configuration, four of which are now running at their sites. Jinjia has really set the benchmark for long, customized presses in cigarette packaging.
We also see customers who mainly run 5–8+L machines but invest in one or two special customized configurations to offer added-value products. These printers typically serve multiple segments rather than focusing on a single product."
"Cosmetics packaging is another key area, driven mainly by domestic demand. A typical setup for this segment is the Speedmaster CX 104-8-LYY-1+L, which we recently showcased at China Print. This configuration is becoming popular among mid-sized printers with 3–5 offset machines.
A good example is Zibo Pengyuxiang, who just installed a Speedmaster CX 104-8+LYY-1+L. They didn’t have specific jobs lined up for this configuration yet, but they wanted a press that could help them develop more attractive solutions for customers in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and other consumer products. It’s truly a universal press for a wide range of special applications.
Then there are customers in consumer electronics. One of the best known is Yuto, which supplies packaging for the world’s most iconic smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches. Their work demands flawless print quality and finishing, because the packaging is part of the brand experience. While I can’t name their client directly, it’s safe to say many readers have held one of those boxes. Even these global benchmarks trust the Speedmaster CX 104 made in China, which speaks volumes about the international standards we uphold."
"Exactly. Whether it’s cigarettes, cosmetics, or electronics, the requirements are similar: application flexibility, reliable quality, and rock-solid stability. Once those are met, productivity becomes the next priority.
And that’s where the Speedmaster CX 104 truly excels. It gives customers the confidence to deliver consistent, high-end results, job after job."
In cigarette and high-end packaging, the board often has a shiny, reflective metallic layer. To print graphics on top, you usually first need a white “base coat” to block out the metallic shine where you want colors to look accurate.
The white has to be extremely dense, so that no metallic shimmer shows through. Ordinary offset inks are relatively transparent, so achieving a fully opaque, even layer is challenging.
The white layer must be perfectly smooth and uniform, without streaks or mottling, because any irregularity will show through when you print colors on top.
Traditionally, opaque white layers on metallized substrates are applied using screen printing or flexography, because those methods can lay down a very thick, dense ink film. Standard sheetfed offset, by contrast, deposits much thinner ink layers, so getting enough opacity in one pass is technically difficult.
To achieve this with offset, you often need special configurations (extra printing units, coating modules, custom ink formulations, or multiple hits of white). If you can do it directly on a sheetfed offset press, you avoid having to move sheets to a separate machine for the white base. That saves time, improves registration accuracy, and lowers costs.
By enabling customers to deliver a sheetfed offset press that could apply a smooth, opaque white directly, HEIDELBERG helped customers consolidate production onto one machine and gain productivity without sacrificing quality.
