Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities has assigned 'Buy' ratings to select stationery players including DOMS Industries Ltd, Flair Writing Industries Ltd and Linc Ltd, while maintaining a positive outlook on the sector.

"DOMS has significantly strengthened its positioning in arts material, geometry boxes, and pencils, emerging as a dominant player in high-volume categories such as crayons, sketch pens, and drawing kits. Its success is being driven by product innovation, child-centric design, and superior packaging at value pricing, which is resonating strongly with the school-going demographic," the domestic brokerage stated.

"While DOMS has also scaled up in pencils (~30 per cent market share), legacy brands like Hindustan Pencils and Camlin continue to lose market share. Notably, capacity constraints at DOMS is leading to supply gaps, suggesting that demand remains ahead of supply. Wholesalers say that the number of high-selling SKUS are so extensive that a separate store can be opened dedicated only to DOMS, which shows that growth by categorization and innovation has proved to be a successful strategy for the company. Channel filling or credit to wholesalers was not seen in DOMS," Nirmal Bang added.

On Flair, the brokerage noted that the company continues to dominate the market, particularly in the Rs 10 price segment with over 50 per cent share of retail shelf space in surveyed outlets. "Its brands (including Hauser Xo, Move) are perceived as fast-moving inventory with consistent offtake. DOMS has gained traction in the Rs5 segment, positioning itself competitively in the mass category, but remains behind Flair in overall pen market leadership. The company offers credit selectively (15-30 days) or does channel filling mainly to larger wholesalers. Bottles in Crawford market were largely dominated by unbranded and Chinese products," it said.

On Linc, Nirmal Bang said the company, through its brands Pentonic and Uniball, has a relatively small portion of its product portfolio achieving strong visibility across the wholesale channel in Mumbai. "The company has strategically inclined towards premium (Uni-ball partnership) and mid-premium writing instruments. Also, its distribution is yet to be fully explored in the western region of the country. Consequently, the brand’s overall presence remains relatively subdued in the segment despite having recognized brands," it also said.

The brokerage has set target prices of Rs 2,820 for DOMS, Rs 390 for Flair and Rs 125 for Linc, implying potential upside of 25 per cent, 23 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, from its assessed price.

Meanwhile, Nirmal Bang recommended a 'Sell' rating on Kokuyo Camlin Ltd with a target price of Rs 78, indicating a potential downside of 12 per cent.