Amar Ujala is one of India’s largest dailies, publishing 19 editions in Hindi across the states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi NCR, Jammu & Kashmir and the union territory of Chandigarh. On its website Amar Ujala says that it is currently the leading daily in UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and the Jammu region of J&K with a daily circulation of 2.93 million copies and a daily readership 30 million.
Amar Ujala’s 18 to 24 pages daily include color pages in addition to several niche supplements that focus on women, jobs and careers and entertainment. The paper is generally confident about its own growth in spite of the recent downsizing by some of the leading newspaper groups. This confidence is largely based on the strength of the regional language and particularly the Hindi newspaper market.
The large Hindi newspaper market is also becoming competitive and there is a financial weakness since profit margins depend solely on advertising rates that are still not commensurate or equal to the rates that the major English dailies are able to command. Although circulation revenue has grown a bit in recent years and is projected to grow a bit faster in coming years, is still fairly weak. Distribution costs including transportation, the newsagents and delivery commissions take a considerable share of the newsstand or monthly subscription realizations of Hindi dailies.
Growth among regional dailies is nevertheless real with Amar Ujala growing at 15% annually and now looking to consolidate its assets across the Hindi belt rather than investing in new editions. In the main, this means upgradation of printing plants with more automation. For instance, in Kanpur and Lucknow where its combined daily circulation is over 4 lakh copies, there is a need for more efficiency and better cost control as well as the need to upgrade the infrastructure especially to produce more color pages.
New presses in five cities
According to Pradeep Unny AVP production – newspaper and commercial, Amar Ujala has recently installed five newspaper lines in, Meerut, Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi. In Meerut there is Manugraph M450 Hiline with six 4-Hi towers running at 45,000 cph. In Varanasi and Agra the Manugraph M360 presslines consist of six 4-Hi towers running at 36,000 cph. The Printers House Orient presslines in Kanpur and Lucknow have seven 4-Hi towers each running at 45,000 and 36,000 cph respectively. All the new presslines have modern dampening and chilling systems with the Manugraph presses using brushes while the Orients have been provided with spray dampening bars. All five press have auto-registration systems as well cut-off controls.
Growth among regional dailies is nevertheless real with Amar Ujala growing at 15% annually and now looking to consolidate its assets across the Hindi belt rather than investing in new editions. In the main, this means upgradation of printing plants with more automation.
Amar Ujala, uses 250 MT of newsprint across all its plants each day. While a small percentage is imported, most of the newsprint is sourced from local manufacturers that are mainly based in North India. While most domestic newsprint is made from recycled inputs, industry experts concede that there is scope for improvement in the quality of the recycled newsprint manufactured in the country.
Book publishing and commercial printing
A few years ago, Amar Ujala diversified to book publishing and commercial printing. For this, an entirely separate division with its own printing and binding setup was established in Noida. The division supplies educational support materials to aspiring candidates studying for competitive exams. More than 15 lakh job aspirants access these educational support materials every year. The education division includes high-end sheet fed and UV presses, folding, gathering, lamination, cutting and binding machines. It prints and converts approximately 25 MT of paper daily in sheet form.
