According to Duplo UK marketing manager Peter Jolly, sales to British companies brought in around £500,000 at this year's event – far higher than pre-Drupa estimates.

He said: "I feel we bucked the trend, there was a very good response from the UK and happily it was a mixture of machines. We expected a good response on the digital side, but litho guys also want to invest."

Included in the company's Drupa sales were a 615Pro cutter/slicer/creaser, a Nearline System bookletmaker and a System 5000 collator bookletmaker that was sold to a litho printer.

Jolly added that as well as having good sales, there was also a large number of positive leads picked up at the event.

He said: "We were particularly surprised by the interest generated in the UV coater. Our tagline at the show was 'adding value' and it seems it is the machines that add value which have drawn a lot of the attention.

"We had the coater on our stand as well as Canon and Xerox's stand and a lot of people wanted to talk about it.

"When a new product does well it's great, but when a machine you are not expecting to be talking about draws so much attention, it's fantastic. The UV coater was the star of the show."