Pens featuring characters from Japanese comic Dragon Ball Z are launched by Ningbo Uhoo Stationery Co Ltd on March 10. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Ningbo Uhoo Stationery Co Ltd, a stationery producer in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province, has figured out a way to make its products more popular by using animated characters.

Uhoo launched a set of pens featuring characters from Dragon Ball, a Japanese comic series, on March 10, leading to deals worth more than one million yuan ($158,119) for the company.

In 2018, the company made its first attempt to cooperate with an animation company, introducing a set of products featuring Magoo, a mushroom cartoon character.

"The price of a regular card holder is only 3.5 yuan," recalled Jiang Xinlian, general manager of Uhoo, "A card holder featuring Magoo sells for 12 yuan. Annual sales of the product have reached 1.48 million yuan.”

The company has been seeking suitable iconic intellectual property rights of popular overseas anime characters since last September.

"Dragon Ball has nearly one billion fans around the world," said a company source, "Uhoo is the only authorized stationery producer in China to use the characters from Dragon Ball Z.

"We noticed that toy consumers largely overlap with stationery consumers. That's why we plan to design more products integrating stationery with figurines and educational toys.”

Uhoo, established in 2011, started out making card holders. Now the company is listed as a national-level high-tech enterprise, holding national patents for over 100 inventions.