Swastik Computer (Brand: AMI) Plans to Expand its Operations into East and Northeast India

The Mumbai-based Swastik Computer Products(Brand: AMI), founded in 1989,  is a prominent provider of a wide range of aftermarket imaging consumables including inks, toners, toner cartridges, cartridge parts, printer parts, dot-matrix ribbons, inkjet cartridges, inkjet inks, OPC drums, wiper blades, doctor blades, PCRs, mag rollers & other spare parts, etc under their brand name AMI. Remanufacturing laser toner cartridges, providing RC printers and printer repair services are their other important business operations. Mr. Romik Shah (S/o Nilesh Shah)takes care of the company’s Marketing and Sales while his father takes care of the overall operations of the company including finance and manufacturing. Swastik Computer imports raw materials from reputed companies abroad and also manufactures certain products and spares in their own plant in Mumbai. They also have their own retail shop in the name of Ajramar Computers in Mumbai. In an interaction with Imaging Solution Magazine, Mr. Romik Shah, shares about their company’s business operations, marketing strategy, and future plans.

Mr. Romik Shah shares, “Due to Covid crisis, we have not launched any new products in the last 2 years. However, except for 4 months of lockdown during 2020, our annual growth rate has been pretty good (over 30%). Our Dot-matrix ribbon business has grown significantly in the last two years because many manufacturers of these ribbons closed down their plants during the lockdown in 2020 and did not restart after that. On the other hand, we continued our production and operations despite problems during the 2020 lockdown. Now the customers of those closed-down units are shifting to us for the dot-matrix ribbons. And this has turned out to be a good opportunity for us. Coming to market trends, delays in supplies from China, from where we import most of our raw materials, continue to persist. Next, a drop in the value of the INR vsUS dollar has pushed up the prices of all the imported products. These two factors -delays in supplies and increases in prices – are adversely affecting our business. Once the educational institutes start working full-time, we hope to see a good increase in business. And the situation is expected to last till the end of 2022. Maybe by early 2023, we can expect some relief.”

Today, Swastik Computer is one of the largest manufacturers of ‘Dot Matrix Printer Ribbons’ in India making in their own setup in Mumbai. Their ribbons are designed, manufactured, and tested by the best equipment and skilled manpower. The empty cartridges, inks, and other raw materials are imported from the best providers abroad to ensure good quality. Their ribbons are compatible with dot matrix printers of different brands including Epson, TVSE, Wipro, Lipi, and citizen.

“We are manufacturing and providing printer spare parts too, whereas earlier we were providing only cartridge parts. We maintain good quality, affordable prices, and long-term relationships with our partners. Our AMI brand compatible cartridges are selling well. We have over 3000 well-connected dealers spread across the states to reach our products to other resellers and end users. Our main focus is on providing consumables for the black printers; not much for color printers,” adds Mr.Romik Shah.

AMI products are designed to give high performance backed by superior quality, competitive prices, and the best customer satisfaction. In addition to providing imaging consumables sales of material, Swastik Computer also has its own well-equipped toner refilling unit which refills 300 cartridges daily. All the consumables of AMI are thoroughly tested to remove faulty products before delivering them to the customer.

Swastik Computer strongly believes that customer is the source & foundation of the company’s development, so their maxim is ‘Win the Market with Quality & Win Reputation with Services.’Mr. Romik Shahreveals, “We still remanufacture laser toner cartridges but only on a small scale because today most users of mono laser toner cartridges prefer use-and-throw compatible cartridges and not showing interest in remanufactured cartridges. Our customers for laser toner cartridges & cartridge parts, toners, and laser printer machine spares, though come from all over India, most come from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh states. About future plans, now we are planning to expand to East and Northeast India regions, where we have not focused much so far. We see a good untapped opportunity there.”