NP Tech Brand Aiming at Major Expansion in Coming Years

NP Tech has over 100 channel-partners pan-India (mostly spread in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Delhi). Taking only Delhi into account, the brand has 10 channel partners. Among NP Tech’s customers, 30% come from corporate and 70% from consumer segments.

NP Tech was founded in 2014 with Raipur (Chhattisgarh) as Head Quarters. The founders of NP Tech, Kamal & Bharat Agrawal, had over 17 years of experience in the peripherals industry. They opened their branches in Bhubaneswar, Nagpur and New Delhi. Their Delhi branch is run by Shrivats Agrawal, a qualified CA and a Partner of NP Tech.  NP Tech stands for New Peripherals Technology, which is their common brand for imaging and IT products including toners, inks, drum magnetic rod, toner cartridges, no ink cartridges, toners in bulk, IT cables and accessories. From Delhi branch, NP Tech operates pan-India, whereas Raipur (HO), Bhubaneswar and Nagpur braches only supply to the needs of the local markets.

Shrivats Agrawal comments, “In Delhi branch our focus is mainly on laser printer cartridges and consumables; no inks. At Delhi branch, we are not dealing in IT products; we deal only in imaging products. Our USPs is good quality and attractive prices. These two principles helped us to establish our brand in a short time of 3 years. In 2014, we launched with 100 items and today we have over 200 products in our portfolio, including imaging and IT products. At Raipur branch, we also deal color inks and toners. Color is growing fast as people are switching more and more from color toners to color inks due to cost-effectiveness of color inks. We get our max revenues for Raipur branch. We import mainly from China and then Taiwan and Korea (Chips). Our imaging business is growing fast. “

In Raipur, NP Tech has two retail outlets: Planet Infotech and Shri Lalji Enterprises. Their IT and imaging product retail outlets operate separately and independently in Raipur. NP Tech imports raw materials from proven overseas providers.

Shrivats adds, “For toners, we are dealing in bulk but from 2018 we will start selling in small packets too for the convenience of the users. Overall, color forms 20% and monochrome 80% of our business, but I think in the coming years, share of color consumable will rapidly increase. We see GST as a good thing and our business has increased significantly after GST. With GST, whole of India has become one market which earlier taxations and formalities at several state markets. Now multiple-taxation is gone, things have become simple; that is a big step forward. But along with advantages GST has brought, it also increased competition as today suppliers can operate anywhere in India by paying a single tax. However, competition is only a temporary issue for us; we will beat competition in the long-run. Another factor that has slowed down in the last one year is low government spending. Whenever, government spends less, it affects most of the industries in India as government is one of biggest purchaser and consumer of different goods, including imaging products in India.”

NP Tech has over 100 channel-partners pan-India (mostly spread in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Delhi). Taking only Delhi into account, the brand has 10 channel partners. Among NP Tech’s customers, 30% come from corporate and 70% from consumer segments.

Talking about channel initiatives and future plans, Shrivats Agrawal comments, “For channel partners, we have various attractive discount schemes, which are different for different levels of performance. Regarding future, currently we are growing at an annual rate of 30% and we want to expand our brand portfolio into copier consumables segment. In March 2018, we are going to open a branch in Chennai to supply to the needs of South Indian market. We want to increase the number of partners from the current 100 to 200 in the coming years. Though establishing a new brand is a bit tough, because there are already established brands in the market, with our hard work, good quality and transparent deals, we are winning customers. We are very optimistic about our growth pan-India in the coming years.”