ITC expands portfolio with Classmate notebooks

Company press release, August 6, 2003

New Delhi

Following its stellar performance in the greeting cards business ITC has laid special thrust on the stationery market and towards expanding its product portfolio. The company has launched Classmate, a brand of note-books, under its umbrella brand Expressions PaperKraft, catering to the mass and high-end segment.

The Classmate range, which stands for quality and dependability, is available in more than 180 variants and comes in hard as well as soft covers. Besides, it is available in different rule formats - single, double, square as well as unrule format. The entire range has cover designs that have graphic visuals ranging from birds, flowers, animals, sports, space, transport and monuments.

The company has laid great emphasis on designs and features that would truly appeal to the target consumers, evoking interest leading to trial and joy of experiencing the product. The inside of the cover page has a small write up on each of the cover visual. The last two pages are totally devoted to trivia on various subjects adding fun to learning. The uniqueness of the product in terms of paper is the usage of 60 GSM paper as compared to 54 - 58 GSM used by various competitions. The other features of the paper can be attributed to the smoothness, whiteness and opacity.

Commenting on the products Mr Chand Das, CEO, ITC Greeting Cards Business said: "The use of eco-friendly paper bleached without elemental chlorine is the first chlorine-free stationery product in the country and the young generation would feel proud to be associated with environment friendly stationery. ITC's main focus is to provide consumers with high aesthetically designed product with added features that would empower her with the right knowledge on diverse subjects."

The Classmate range is priced between Rs 10 - Rs 40. The pricing is very competitive and is in sync with market expectations. ITC would be distributing its Classmate stationery products through stationery outlets as well as greeting cards outlets that stock stationery products.

About ITC Greeting Cards Business

ITC Greeting Card Business leverages some of the group's core skills being - a paper and paperboard, printing and packaging and distribution. The premium Expressions range of greeting cards comprises over 10,000 designs conceived by international and Indian designers to suit a wide range of occasions, relationships, styles of statement and variations in the regional ethos of the country. ITC has been able to capture over 20% per cent of the greeting cards market and the Expressions range is available in over 700 towns across the country spanning over 12,000 retail outlets.

For details contact:

Sampark Public Relations

Nitin/Lalit

Tel: 24352037/ 24353740