 "Wendy Doniger")
Japanese stationery major Shachihata Inc announced its foray into the Indian stationary market through its Artline India brand.
Shachihata is the second major stationary brand from Japan to enter India after Kokuyo S&T, which acquired a majority stake in Camlin in 2011.
Yasuji Mori, director, Shachihata Inc said that over the last 15 years the company has been focusing on exports, with a plant near Chennai, and now has decided to focus on the domestic market.
The company however, has not disclosed the investment into the Indian venture.
Biju Oommen, general manager-sales, Artline (India) Pvt Ltd, said the domestic stationery market is estimated around Rs 7,000 crore and is expected to grow around 12 per cent.
“We have set a target to capture around 20 per cent market share in relevant categories (writing, scholastic and colouring) in next 3-4 years,” he said.
He added the company will manufacture products for the domestic market from the Chennai plant and would also look at outsourcing model for manufacturing them. The company will be launching pens, crayons, oil pastels, geometry boxes and others and they will be manufactured at this plant, which currently has a capacity to manufacture three million pieces of marker pens per month. These products will be launched during the first quarter of the next fiscal year.
To start with the company is targeting the top 30 cities in the country, with around 200 distributors and 50,000 stationery outlets and planning to expand it to 200 towns with 1.50 lakh outlets and 500 SKUs.
Founded in 1925, Shachihata Inc, is the inventor of Pre-Ink Stamp pads a leading Japanese brand offering writing, marking and stamping products. Last year the company reported a global turnover of $170 million, with presence in around 75 countries.
Shachihata will be the second Japanese stationery brand to come to India in the last three years. In 2011, Kokuyo bought a majority stake in Camlin Ltd.
