Monotype Solutions India is a global provider of typefaces, technology and expertise based out of Noida, in the Delhi NCR. With branches all over the world, the company has been operating in the country since March 2012, offering solutions that enable the growing variety of multilingual fonts to be printed or displayed, efficiently and legibly across devices and screens. Monotype’s strategy in India is to scale their Noida innovation centre and to help brands and content designers attain creative freedom across all Indian scripts, by leveraging its fonts, technology and expertise.
With 780 different languages being spoken and 86 different scripts being used, India is home to a massive number of languages. This is an indication of the current size of regional publishing in the country with more than 16,000 publishers in India producing 90,000 titles annually in 24 languages, of which 18 are considered to be major languages. According to a FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2013, the Hindi print market grew by 9.8% from Rs. 62 billion in 2011 to Rs. 68 billion in 2012, while the rest of vernacular languages grew from Rs. 63 billion in 2011 to Rs. 69 billion in 2012 respectively. These numbers represent the rate at which we can expect regional publishing to grow in the country.
The present state of regional publishing in India is dynamic. Content consumption from connected devices like PCs, smart phones, tablets is on the rise. Many print and publishing outfits across the globe are developing strategies on how to design and present compelling content on such a broad array of digital devices. The experiences readers have come to expect on the digital front also represent a learning curve for traditional print outfits. These are significant challenges. According to one of the studies conducted recently by BrandsPerfect, a Monotype initiative revealed that, “93% of consumer magazines in the
readers complete cross-platform digital experiences, despite heavy investment in mobile application development”.
This ability of a publisher to excel in both the print and digital world is critical to its long term success. The staggering number of scripts in India is an indication of the potential that the Indian market holds. According to industry data,the publishing industry in India is booming both in terms of volume and value of production. Of the overall market, Hindi and vernacular segments constitute nearly 60 percent of the overall Indian publishing industry
Addressing the varied needs of the Indian regional market
With this rising demand, several software giants like Monotype are coming up with regional Indic font support to enable the regional publishing industry. Neeraj Gulati, managing director of Monotype Solutions India says, “Monotype already has a wide offering of Indic fonts in its growing portfolio and is committed to establish its thought leadership in the Indian market as it has already done across the globe. The decision to enter India is encouraged by key drivers that are fuelling the company’s expansion strategy in India. A critical driver is the multi- lingual environment which has inherent typeface requirements.”
He continues, “Monotype’s technology experts have developed display imaging technologies out of India to support regional texts across devices with varying resolutions, density and sizes. Also, with regional publishing on the rise, there is a demand for Indic fonts by publishers. The recent foray by Harlequin, the publishers of the romance fiction label Mills & Boon, into the Indian regional publishing market is testimony of the demand and scope in this market. Monotype is constantly making endeavours to strengthen its Indic fonts’ portfolio.”
Digital eBooks, magazines, multilingual websites, digital branding are some of the areas of interest for today’s brands. As the penetration of digital devices and smart screens increases, Monotype known previously for its typefaces and typesetting technology seeks to help brands transform from print to digital with better impact. Being the global innovation hub for Monotype, the Noida centre looks to specialize in creating innovative solutions that would serve its customer and business needs very well. In future, it is also look at playing a bigger role for the global marketplace in this regard
