Book printer Quarterfold Printabilities embarks on major investment drive

Navi Mumbai-based Quarterfold Printabilities has successfully managed to get a significant foothold in the African educational books market in the short span of five years. Most of the educational books that it prints are exported to Africa, primarily Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Ivory Coast. The company has One Star Export House status, which it got in 2015.

Quarterfold Printabilities was founded in 2014 and, under the young CEO Nilesh Dhankani, has seen rapid growth during these years and now clocks a turnover of over Rs 100 crore. Quarterfold’s printing and post-printing operations take place at three units – two at Taloja in Navi Mumbai and one at Bhiwandi. Printing work happens at the Bhiwandi unit and one of the units at Taloja. The other Taloja unit, which has been recently leased, is used only for post-printing work.

Stepping up investment

Quarterfold embarked on a major capital expenditure drive during 2018-2019 financial year with installation of five printing machines. The company invested in four Orient web offset presses and one Komori sheet-fed press in the previous year. With this, it now has in total seven Orient web offset presses, four at Taloja and three at Bhiwandi. It also has two sheet-fed presses, one from Komori, which was commissioned in March, and one from Heidelberg.

“We have seen a healthy annual growth rate in the past five years and we felt it was time for a new round of investment in our printing and post-printing capabilities. That is why we went for this big round of investment. There are a few other post-printing machines that we ordered in the last financial year and they are on the way as well,” says Pijamo Ngullie, head of international marketing at Quarterfold.

In terms of the quantity of books printed, Quarterfold prints about 35 lakh books in a month but during the peak season, which runs from February to June, the company has sometimes printed as many as 60 lakh books in a month. Before the new presses were commissioned, the company would get a large chunk of the books printed from third-party printers. Now with the bigger print capacity, it handles these volumes in-house to a great extent.

With such huge print volumes, wastage is an issue and therefore a big focus is on automation. For its post-printing section, in the next few months, the company will commission a brand new Kolbus perfect binding machine and a Muller Martini center-pinning machine. The company is currently using multiple binding machines from Welbound.

“We are focusing on increasing automation in our post-printing operations by opting for solutions from Kolbus and Muller Martini. These will help us in reducing wastage and take care of labor costs too,” Ngullie argues.

Future clearly planned out

Having established a solid presence in the African continent, the plan is now to expand in the Indian market; another high growth area when it comes to educational books.

“At present most of our business comes from the export market. However, we are now paying a lot of attention to the domestic market as well. A domestic marketing division was established in October last year and about Rs 6 crore of business is now generated from the Indian market. We want to take this higher,” says Ngullie.

So, in the coming years, Quarterfold will not only consolidate its business in Africa but will also aggressively expand in India.

“We see major growth potential in the Indian and African market when it comes to printing educational books. A few years ago, the industry was trying to figure out if eBooks will have any impact on demand for physical books. But that threat has not really materialized in any significant way. We do not see any let up in demand for physical educational books for at least a decade. We are in fact striving to get the Two Star Export House status as soon as possible,” Ngullie argues.

Print on demand

Although primary focus in the Indian market for Quarterfold will be on educational books, the company is also eyeing the burgeoning print-on-demand (POD) market here too. The company already takes orders for POD books but they are not processed in-house; instead, they are outsourced to third-party digital printers. Quarterfold now wants to handle this department in-house.

“In addition to the Indian educational books we are also very optimistic about the POD market in India. We see good demand for products such as paperbacks. That is why we are now very seriously looking at it,” says Ngullie.

Quarterfold will bring in a digital printing machine and set a fully-fledged finishing unit at the Taloja unit that is at present being only used for post-printing work. “We will begin establishing an in-house POD department once the monsoon season is over around August-September,” Ngullie concludes.