GM Pens tie up with German brand Schneider Schreibgeräte

Plans to launch other school stationary products such as geometry box, expand overseas

GM Pens International Pvt Ltd, owner of Rorito brand of writing instruments, has entered into strategic technological tie-up with German writing instrument brand Schneider Schreibgeräte GmbH to launch pens with German technology and components. The company is also planning to expand its business to other school stationery products such as geometry box soon and to sell its products in the Middle East and African markets.

GM Pens, which was earlier manufacturing and selling the Reynolds brand of writing instruments in India, is expecting the tie-up to help it offer quality products at affordable prices, especially for the students.

With the tie-up, the company will bring in precision components used in manufacturing pens, from Schneider's plant overseas to offer superior quality products to the customer. For Schneider, it will give an entry into the mass segment of the Indian writing instruments market, which would be a difficult task had it decided to enter directly.

The writing instruments market is worth about Rs 5,500 crore in India, of which Rs 3,500 is in the organised sector. Almost 60 per cent of the organised sector business is from school students, said Indrakumar Mahendran, joint managing director of GM Pens International.

"The tie-up helps Schneider to enter into the mass market in India, which is a large market," said Christian Schneider, managing director, Schneider Schreibgeräte.

It has launched two products under the tie-up -- Rorito Teramax and Rorito Robomax -- for school students at the price of Rs 45 and Rs 50 respectively. The products will have both Rorito and Schneider brands labelled on it.

Rorito, which is starting exports to the Middle East and Africa, is also planning to expand its business to the adjacent stationery business, and would launch a geometry box product under the brand in a few months. The company would be manufacturing these products with Korean companies and would expand to other products by the end of the year.

The company is also expanding capacity by rolling out a new facility in Puducherry by May 2017. It currently has eight manufacturing units in Puducherry and three in Chennai, with a total capacity of around 2.7 million pens a day. The new facility will add around 500,000 more capacity and contribute 7-8 per cent to the revenue. The investment in the new facility would be around Rs 45 crore.

GM Pens has clocked in Rs 430 crore revenue in last fiscal year and expects a 6-7 per cent growth this year. It roped in Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador for five years when it launched the brand Rorito. GM Pens launched Rorito brand as they parted ways with Reynolds, the multinational writing instrument brand, recently.