Top book printing firms in India

Abhimani Prakashana

The book printing firm also owns a newspaper in Karnataka. Abhimani is equipped with a fleet of web offset and sheetfed presses that produces newspapers, magazines and books. The firm is an empanelled printer for the textbook society in three states.  Besides exports of books and diaries, the printing firm is also into construction of culverts and bridges.

Brijbasi Art Press

The firm has a capacity to produce 1,00,000 centre stitched and 20,000 perfect bound books per day. It is the publisher and packager of children books and coffee-table books. It is eyeing to expand in the overseas market and is a solid participant at international book fairs like Frankfurt Book Fair. Director Saurabh Garg, a dynamic and soft-spoken printing technocrat, finds roots in a 90-year old family business which championed the cause of calendars.

Gita Press

The statistics are mind-numbing. 10 crore Bhagvad Gitas in 15 regional languages. 7.5 crore copies of Ramacharitamanas and Tulsi Sahitya. Gita Press based in Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh has notched up a total of 50 crore books – at the price of rupees one. And today, the demand is growing. Today, the publishing house can be tagged as the world’s largest publishers of Hindu religious text. The press is the unit of Gobind Bhawan Karyalaya and functions on the motto of promoting and spreading the principles of Hindu dharma through its publications. The firm has to its credit the capacity to print about 370 million copies of religious texts in 15 regional languages. All this in the name of “public service”.

Gopsons Papers

The specialist book printing company has five specialised manufacturing locations in India. The book printing firm has won the PrintWeek India Post-Press Company of the Year Award in 2009, followed up by a strong nomination in 2010. The company’s extraordinary journey began as a dealer who supplied paper to publishers. It is the first company in India to have an IFC certification. In a recent development, the book printing has started a brand-new unit in Sivakasi. This unit is expected to boost their outreach in book printing.

Kala Jyothi

Kala Jyothi has established two print hubs in Hyderabad, and one each in Navi Mumbai and Greater Noida. The family of technocrats are personally engaged in the nitty-gritty of print production and ser very exacting standards. Besides cars and bikes, the Alapatis own a golf course. Most of the Haymarket India publications like AutoCar India - including PrintWeek India - are published at Kala Jyothi's first rate plant. Need we say more?

Lovely Offset

Founded in 1961, Lovely Offset in Sivakasi is expanding with phase II on its sprawling 23-acre plot. Lovely has a 60,000 sq/ft book plant which is capable of automated soft-cover and hard-cover book binding. Lovely’s top management is keen to transform the low quality book market into a segment for high quality, high volume. Phase II which comprises a brand new plant – is almost ready. 40% of book production in the new unit will be for exports. This should pitchfork the company into the big league. Recently, the book printing firm has invested in Muller Martini’s Diamant MC 35 bookline. This is the first Diamant in India.

Magic International

The stationery and book printing firm based in Greater Noida, has expanded to its new facility spread over one lakh sq/ft area. The firm exports 40% of the total production. At the helm is the father-son duo of Rajeev and Ashish Batra. With 70 distributors and a range of 150 plus products, it is no looking back for Magic International. Formed in 1991, Earlier the company was called Surya Print Process and based in Kirti Nagar, Delhi.

Manipal Technologies

Manipal Technologies has been transformed from $5 million family-run printing business in 1998 to a $500 million well-diversified print services and business solutions organisation. With 4,000 strong workforce and an impressive compounded annual growth of 31% between 2009-2011 has made Manipal one of the biggest printers in the country.

Manipal's production facilities, occupy a total of over 700,000 sq/ft of production area in Manipal, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi, with diverse technologies and hih end equipment from leading manufacturers. They have marketing offices across the country in all major cities to ensure that a close point of contact is available to clients. It is the only company to win the PrintWeek India Print Company of the Year twice (2009 and 2012).

MBD

With a network of 35 offices across the country, probably the only publishing house which has complete backward and forward integration with its own paper mills, and five state-of-the-art printing presses. The company’s publishing success can be measured from over a thousand distributors under its network and more than ten thousand booksellers. MBD group was started by Ashok Kumar Malhotra, who published the first book at the age of 13. He was a philanthropist at heart and contributed a part of the book sales to CRY.

Multivista Global

1,25,000 sq/ft fully integrated printing unit in Chennai. The unit gains its financial clout due to the backing of its export-oriented tannery and shoe manufacturing unit.

A team of in-house experts ensure Multivista print jobs for the best education publishers worldwide. The company is professional about supply chain management and has integrated ‘Just in Time’ inventory policy. Exports hold the key. Former president, R Venkataraman inaugurated the new unit.The 37-year old company is growing at over 100%, since its start as a modest letterpress unit. The company has created a vital segment in book printing and the clientele includes some of the top publishers in the world including Oxford, Cambridge, Penguin. Total workforce of 800 employees plus 180 associates in the printing division warrants extra measures for employee satisfaction and events such as staff days are a regular affair. The company also prides itself on on-time payment of salaries (29th of every month).

Navneet Publications

Navneet Publications, founded by the Gala family, is in the business of educational, children and general book publication, scholastic paper and non-laler stationery products. They are dominant player in the field of publishing with more than 5,000 titles in English, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu and other Indian and foreign languages.

Navneet has reporte a sales turnover of Rs 140.85 crore and a nre profit of Rs 14.73 crore for the quarter ended September 2012, which is 13.4% higher from quarter ended September 2011.

New Print India

ISO 9001 certified company which is part of the well-established Aravali printers in Delhi. Can produce lakhs of books, plus magazines thanks to the Komori 38S. Sunil Verma has a keen eye for book design; and is keen to enhance the print muscle of the company. Participated in the Nigeria Book Fair – and left a mark due to its ability to render complex jobs at low cost.

Nutech

Pitambra Books

According to unofficial reports, this Jhansi-based press, is the largest textbook printer in the country, supplying to most of the state textbook corporations. It has more than thirty coldset web offset machines of various cut-offs, Komori and Planeta sheetfeds.

The company claims to have a capacity to print one million books per day. In times of uncertainty, Pitambra made massive investments in its plant and machinery, perhaps the biggest by a book printer, in terms of number of books produced.

Pragati Offset

Pragati covers the full gamut of print needs – from company profiles to brochures and catalogues, coffee-table books to calendars, folding cartons and labels to luxury rigid cartons as well as point-of-sale material. The firm has notched solid sales figures; and a healthy profit before tax. But what sets the firm apart is a corresponding increase in expenditure on staff by 36.46%.

Pragati recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary. Narendra Paruchuri, managing director of Pragati talking about the 50 year journey said, “I believe that in a firm which has 100 employees, if 98 are good, the other two do not matter. Even so, I have not given up my faith on people because when I say ‘Team Pragati’ I mean it because it’s the team which makes Pragati or not. I always give the example that Schumacher or Sebastian Vettel get to pop the champagne, but if the pit-crew is not able to change the tyre in six seconds, he would not be the champion. I believe the team makes a difference.”

Pragati holds the distinction of being the most awarded print firm in India.

Printshop

Chennai-based company with a sister company (Reproman) in Bengaluru has expanded with fully automated post-press operations with an exhaustive line of binding, cutting and folding machines. The company has HR policies which enables superior process on the shopfloor. A CSR program for neighbourhood housewives, who reside in Kotivakkam near the Old Mahabalipuram Road, to work part-time at Printshop is quite a novel idea.

Replika Press

Based in Kundli (Haryana), Replika has super specialisation in book printing. Known to go to any length to please customers, as it demonstrated with its re-print of the Slumdog Millionaire book. Operating from a 1,32,000 sq/ft print production facility in Kundli, Haryana, it prints and delivers close to 12.8 million books per annum. 70% book exports is the backbone of its success. Replika’s efforts to produce better printed books won it the PWI Post-Press Company of the Year Award in 2011 and 2012. Replika Press has recently invested in a new Kolbus Sigloch SB-7020 and a book-block preparation line Kolbus BF 527 to upgrade its hard casing-in online. Replika also has plans to go digital and add another eight-colour offset printing press.

Repro India

Repro India provides content, print and fulfillment solutions to publishers, corporates, education institutions and governments. In the financial year which ended March 31, 2011 Repro clocked over Rs 2.5 billion in revenue, with over 50% coming from overseas markets. They serve customers across four continents and produce multiple product formats such as books, e-books and other interactive content.

Repro India has been awarded the Capexil Export Award for being India’s leading books exporter, for five years.

RR Donnelley

RR Donnelley in India is based at Chennai and began their operations in 2006 with warehouse and distribution activities. They cater to the needs of technology and telecom industry. RRD has its post press in full swing and is expanding on its press and pre-press capability.

RR Donnelley is a global provider of integrated communications. The company works collaboratively with more than 60,000 customers worldwide to develop custom communications solutions that reduce costs, drive top-line growth, enhance ROI and ensure compliance. Drawing on a range of proprietary and commercially available digital and conventional technologies deployed across four continents, the company employs a suite of leading internet based capabilities and other resources to provide pre-media, printing, logistics and business process outsourcing services to clients in virtually every private and public sector.

S Chand

One of India’s leading publishing company for over seven decades now. Has the capacity to produce over 20 million page impressions per day. One of the few companies, which has realised the importance of finishing in books and has opted for automated technology in binding. Currently the company produces around 12-million books every year and this quantity is increasing by 15% every year in terms of production. Apart from the two existing printing units in Ramnagar and Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, the Group plans to set up printing units in Chennai, Kolkata and Maharashtra in the next three years. Recently the company expanded its portfolio through two different mergers and acquisition. The company acquired UK publishing company Blackie and Sons Indian Arm, and BPI in which it has a majority stake. BPI owns rights for major characters from Warner Bros, Cartoon Network etc, which helped S Chand Group to strengthen their children’s book segment.

SAP Print Solutions  

Fast growing annual report print firm. Located in Mumbai and Vasai. The Mumbai unit boasts of five Heidelberg sheetfed offset presses while the Vasai unit is equipped with seven web offset presses. The firm is capable of printing annual report using 30 gsm Bible paper in single-colour. Prints 70% annual reports of the Tata group.

Srinivas Fine Arts

Srinivas Fine Arts is a good example of where the Indian book printing industry is heading. The company is on the verge of completing what could be the biggest plant in India on a 65-acre plot. The unit has an array of Kolbus, Aster and Sigloch equipment on a one lakh sq/ft pillarless shopfloor.

SFA has grown into a company which produces premium diaries, notebooks, and 200 paper products under its brand name Nightingale. Today, SFA is also one of the few global stationery comapnies with a presence in five continents - USA, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Sona Printers

After being dormant, Sona Printers has burst onto the scene with huge investments. 200-crore impressions, 12-crore books, 7,000 tonnes of paper stationery per annum. Timeline is critical – and the Mittal family adhere to a strict 9.30am to 5.30pm timing. A rarity in the industry. All directors come to office in self driven cars – and the tea at the unit is pretty good.

Standard Press India

Located in a 60,000 sq/ft unit which produces books. It has a Roland 700 eight-colour and a four-colour Roland 700. Prints books (hard cover and soft cover), board books, children books, catalogues and brochures, diaries and magic painting books as well. Its in-house meditation sessions for the staff became a talk of the town; plus its fire-power with Sivakasi’s famous fire-crackers.

Swapna Printing

Prints supplements and magazines. Publishes Kolkata Green Pages which is similar to the Yellow Pages. A raft of coldset and heatset web offset machines, a Kolbus casing in-line machine, book block-making machine, and a brand-new Mitsubishi. The speciality is mass volume, hard cover books which require low gsm paper. Perhaps, India’s number one printer for Bible printing, Swapna used to have a deer park on the premise.

Thomson Press

With a multi-location set-up, the Faridabad-based firm is capable of producing books, Bible printing, magazines and well almost everything. In 2006, the firm established an export-oriented unit at Airoli and within three years in operation, which reached a turnover of Rs 100-crore. Thomson is headed by Arun Purie, who also owns Living Media and TV Today.

 C J Jassawala of Thomson Press says, “Over the last three years, at Thomson Press, we have firmly ingrained practices like 5S, autonomous maintenance as well as working in cross-functional teams, in order to propel the organisation on the path of continuous improvement. We successfully completed over one hundred projects to cut cost, improve safety, increase production and productivity and enhance quality.”