Hello Santabarbara,
Please let me know if the information below sufficiently answers your question.
Thanks,
Bobbie7
3M has rarely released sales statistics over the years, but in 1981,
the company honored Post-it Notes with a Golden Step award, which it
gave to any 3M product that recorded more than two million dollars in
revenues, at a profit. In 1984, a People magazine article estimated
the previous year?s sales at forty-five million dollars. In 1998, when
Post-it Notes filed a lawsuit against a copycat competitor, a 3M
company spokesperson said that worldwide sales of Post-it Notes and
their spin-offs was around one billion dollars a year. A year earlier,
that same spokesperson had described the Post-it brand as ?one of the
company?s two or three most valuable assets.?
Source:
Twenty-Five Years of Post-it Notes
Seriously! Minnesota's greatest invention prefigured email, hypertext,
and the digital revolution.
by Greg Beato - April 2005
http://www.rakemag.com/stories/section_detail.aspx?itemID=5383&catID=146&SelectCatID=146
According to Chris Holmes, 3M's plant manager:
?Millions of the self-stick notes are manufactured each year and sold
worldwide. They are one of the top five selling office supply products
in the United States and are brisk sellers in Japan and Europe. Holmes
says the exact quantity of Post-itŪ notes made annually is a trade
secret - publishing that figure would be a competitive threat to 3M.?
?While Post-itŪ notes enjoy an ever-growing presence in the limelight,
their makers maintain a low profile about the product. Proprietary
technology remains just that. Trade secrets are jealously guarded.
Plant tours are discouraged."We simply don't show people our
processes," says Holmes.?
Patents
?Patents, like trade secrets, fall under the proprietary category -
they're strictly on a need-to-know basis.?
? While Holmes admits that some of the Post-itŪ note patents have
expired, he is quick to point out that 3M has an undisclosed game plan
in place.?
"We're still okay," he says. "We continue to develop the product and
have new patents."
Despite the serious nature of patents and trade secrets, Holmes is the
first to remark on the lighthearted spirit of Post-itŪ products?.
http://www.cynthianaky.com/postits.htm
From the American Chemical Society:
?By some estimates, more than 1 trillion individual sticky notes have
been sold worldwide since the product was first introduced.?
Science and Technology
April 5, 2004
Volume 82, Number 14
pp. 64
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/8214sci3.html
Competitors
Bic Logonotes
BIC Sticky Note adhesive notepads
http://www.logonotes.com/USA-2.5x3.htm
Stick It or Not Notes
from American Stationary
http://www.americanstationery.com/
Sticky Notepads from Traylor Papers
http://www.traylorpapers.com/stickynotes.html |
