Amar Ujala, one of India’s largest Hindi language daily newspapers, recorded 17.9% growth in the six month period from July to December 2015 (Source: ABC July-December 2015 over January June 2015). Driven by increased color pagination, the daily ranks highest amongst the top 20 daily newspapers in the country. Amar Ujala with 19 editions in seven states and one union territory covers more than 160 districts with a circulation of 29.35 lakh (2.9 million) copies as certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) in its July-December 2015 report. This reflects two stories based on objective numbers that metro-centric media watchers cannot ignore—first, of the heartland where the market growth is coming from, and second, the story of a resurgent Hindi brand.
“We are constantly growing and right now we are the highest growing newspaper in India. Our circulation is growing, which means we have to increase our infrastructure too at the same pace. As part of our capacity building initiatives we plan to install a new Manugraph Hiline press at our Meerut plant in November 2016, and will be operational by February 2017,” says Joney Kumar, assistant general manager – production at Amar Ujala, Meerut. Amar Ujala recently installed two more Manugraph Hiline presses at its Noida and Lucknow plants, respectively.
When we spoke to IK Dogra of Manugraph about the company’s success and new installations, he shared, “We are doing very good, particularly in the Indian market. Apart from our success at Amar Ujala, we have also notched a few more orders from Bartman, Kolkata and Bhaskar, Jabalpur. So the financial year 2015–16 has been good for us. We have recorded a very good turnover.” Manugraph’s 2×1 Ecoline press is also generating rave reviews, according to Dogra. “After the launch of our Ecoline press last year, we have installed our first machine at Viva Publications, Noida,” says Dogra.
“In the Indian market, although not all the newspapers are growing, certain newspapers which have longterm plan and strategy are growing and expanding. Circulation for some newspapers are stagnating but there are also those whose circulation are growing and they are doing really well,” he adds.
Manugraph has a separate packaging division in Mumbai, headed by Hiten Mehta. “We have already diversified to the flexible packaging segment where we are selling gravure machines, narrow web flexo and CI flexo machines,” says Dogra. “The packaging division is also doing good and is focusing to tap markets all over the world.”
