The Italian printer signed a letter of intent to buy a second Sunday 5000 at Drupa and is expecting the first machine to be installed later this year at its Seriate plant, with the second to arrive in early 2009.

It is costing Mazzucchelli around £16m to buy and build space for the two machines.

"This press breaks the rules and will give us clear competitive advantages," director Pierluigi Guerini said.

He added that the company had enjoyed "excellent" results with 48- and 64-page Goss Sunday presses with pinless folders.

"The wider 96-page format represents the next breakthrough, combining added high-pagination productivity with short-run efficiency."

Goss unveiled plans for the Sunday 5000 last October. The 2,860mm web width produces 96 A4 magazine pages per cylinder revolution at 40,000 impressions an hour.

Gapless blanket technology reduces vibration to enable high speed and high print quality with the wider 12x4m long-grain cylinder configuration.

"Our gapless-blanket technology is a differentiating advantage," Goss CEO Bob Brown said. It will create new opportunities for our customers and for web-offset printing.