Following the success of its greeting cards venture, tobacco to hotels major ITC Ltd has now firmed up plans to foray into the stationery segment.

The company will introduce notebooks under its 'Expressions' umbrella brand.

"We want to tap the highly unorganised stationery market, which is at least five times the size of the greeting cards market," Chandan Das, chief executive of ITC's greeting cards business, said. Analysts estimate the Indian stationery market at around Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).

Under Expressions, there will be two ranges. The 'Class Mate' range is targeted mainly at the school kids, while the 'Paper Kraft' range is aimed at college students and young executives.

While the 'Paper Kraft' range carries a price tag of up to Rs 150, the Class Mate range is priced between Rs 10-40. The product was rolled out for test marketing in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Chennai last week.

ITC is planning a national launch for the product by the end of August after which the product would be available in every town that has a population of more than 500,000. According to Das, there are 70 such towns in India.

ITC is targeting a 5 per cent market share in the notebook segment within the first year of its launch. The product would be retailed by all shops currently selling Expressions greeting cards.

Das said Navneet is the only other national player in the school notebooks segment, while Nightingale is the sole competition for its Paper Kraft range.

However, none of these players enjoy more than a single-digit market share, Das added.

He said ITC decided to launch notebooks because the market is highly unorganised with a very low brand recall.

"We hope to make a difference in this category by focusing on the printing, finishing, and adding innovative designs," Das said.

The use of eco-friendly 'chlorine-free' paper would be the unique selling proposition for the product, he said.

The company launched its greeting cards 3-4 years back under the Expressions brand. Today, it claims a market share of about 15-20 per cent, compared with Archies' 35 per cent and Hallmark's 10-12 per cent.