Océ in strategic distribution partnership with Founder Group of China

Strengthens position in growing Chinese digital printing market

Poing, Germany, 6 March 2007 — Océ N.V., a leading international document management company, today announced it enters into a strategic distribution partnership with Founder Group in China. Today, an agreement for this partnership has been signed at Océ's OpenHouse in Poing, Europe's largest annual digital printing fair. Founder's nation wide sales organisation will sell Océ's digital printing systems in the high volume printing and graphic arts markets. In 2006, Océ achieved revenues in countries outside the US and EU, including China, of approximately € 230 million. In China Océ employs 170 people. The production printing market in China still is 98% offset and 2% digital printing. Digital production printing growth rate is forecasted at a 17,5 - 20% per annum until 2015.

For Océ, this new partnership represents an attractive opportunity to strengthen its position in the rapidly growing Chinese digital printing market. Founder Electronics, a wholly owned subsidiary of a publicly listed company under Founder Group, is the largest software, system and solution provider to the digital printing industry in China and a major distributor of digital printing systems.
 
For Founder Electronics, the partnership provides the opportunity to offer its digital printing software system solutions globally. Taking advantage of this partnership, Founder is going to promote its technologies in digital printing and network publishing to the global market.
 
Part of Founder is the Founder EasiPrint chain of digital printing franchise stores, currently numbering over 200 outlets throughout China, with plans to expand to more than 1,000 stores in the next three to five years.

Partnership strengthens Océ distribution power in China

Enlarging distribution power is one of the corner stones of the corporate growth strategy of Océ. 'The partnership with Founder is an important element of our growth strategy in China', said Rokus van Iperen, CEO of Océ N.V. 'This strategic partnership will strengthen our distribution power for systems and services in the Chinese market by leveraging the nationwide coverage of the Founder EasiPrint sales organisation. The fast-growing numbers of Founder EasiPrint franchise stores offer a significant opportunity for sales of our digital printing systems in both the high-volume printing and graphic arts markets.'

Synergies will build on established business relationship

The strategic partnership will build on the established business relationship between Océ and Founder. Over the last years, Founder already did sell Océ printing systems in China. Under the agreement signed today, Founder will continue and expand this practice, offering Océ printing systems via its currently over 200 EasiPrint stores. Among them is the Océ Colour Production System 900 Platinum, a leading digital colour printer. In addition, Océ and Founder have reach agreement on a technology partnership, involving amongst others Founder controllers to be included in Océ printing systems, enabling these systems to handle the Chinese language characters.

About Founder Group & Founder Electronics

Founded by Beijing University, the most prestigious university in China, Founder is one of the largest technology companies in China today. Starting from an innovative core of printing and laser typesetting technologies, Founder enabled the computerization of China's printing industry. Founder has more than 85% market share in news and publishing sectors in China. Utilising digital copyright management technology, Founder's network publishing strategy has become the most comprehensive digitized network security platform in China. Founder provides products and services to customers in a wide range of industries worldwide including newspapers, commercial publishing, printing, broadcasting, television, internet, libraries and government administration.
 
Founder Group, which reported 2006 revenues of over USD 3.5 billion, is a leading provider of advanced information technology, software products, business solutions, and other value-added services with more than 20,000 employees world-wide. For more information, please visit http://www.founder.com.
 
Beijing Founder Electronics Co. Ltd. is the largest software, system and solution provider to the Chinese digital printing industry, and partners with several leading international digital printing vendors. 

For more information contact: 

Nick Gale
Manager Media Relations
Océ Technologies
Tel.: +31.77.359.5628
Email: nick.gale@oce.com