The end of the line: Last typewriter factory left in the world closes its doors



India-based company has just a few hundred machines left in stock

It's an invention that revolutionised the way we work, becoming an essential piece of office equipment for the best part of a century.

But after years of sterling service, that bane for secretaries has reached the end of the line.

Godrej and Boyce - the last company left in the world that was still manufacturing typewriters - has shut down its production plant in Mumbai, India with just a few hundred machines left in stock.

Standing the test of time: The keyboard might not have changed in 100 years, but the typewriter itself has been superseded by the computer

Although typewriters became obsolete years ago in the west, they were still common in India - until recently. Demand for the machines has sunk in the last ten years as consumers switch to computers.

The company's general manager, Milind Dukle, told India's Business Standard newspaper: 'We are not getting many orders now.

'From the early 2000s onwards, computers started dominating. All the manufacturers of office typewriters stopped production, except us.



'Till 2009, we used to produce 10,000 to 12,000 machines a year. But this might be the last chance for typewriter lovers. Now, our primary market is among the defence agencies, courts and government offices.'

The last in a long tradition: Godrej and Boyce's Prima typewriter is the last machine of its kind to be manufactured

The company is now down to its last 200 machines - the majority of which are Arabic language models.

The firm began production in the 1950s - when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru described the typewriter as a symbol of India's emerging independence and industrialisation. It was still selling 50,000 models annually in the early 1990s, but last year it sold less than 800 machines.

The first commercial typewriter was produced in the U.S. in 1867 and by the turn of the century had developed into the standardised format - including a qwerty' keyboard - that we know today.