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News Update from the Retail Scene in India
chillibreeze writer — The Chillibreeze Business Research Team
The retail industry could see a sea change with the Government of India considering Foreign Direct Investment. With this in view, Chillibreeze plans to bring you periodical updates on the retail scene in India.
The Chillibreeze Business Research Team has writers with interest and experience in the Retail industry, will be populating this page with the updates.
July 23rd - 29th India Retail News: India Wal Mart,
Tesco and More
1. Monday, July 24, 2006 Pantaloon forms JV with Ruchi Soya
Pantaloon Retail announced that it had formed a joint venture with Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd for the sale of its refined edible oil. Ruchi Soya products such as Nutrela, Ruchi Gold, Ruchi Star and Nutrela Soyumm will now be sold at Pantaloon’s outlets, increasing its business from 10 to 15 percent.
Source: Economic Times
2. Tuesday, July 25, 2006 VLCC launches health food chain
VLCC Retail, the retail division of the VLCC Group of Companies, has launched a low calorie, health food restaurant chain called Alive. The company will be opening 4-5 restaurants by March 2007 and making an investment of Rs. 150-200 million in the next 2 years. Alive restaurants will be opened in initially only in the NCR region and in Bangalore and Mumbai in 2007.
The restaurants will focus on offering low calorie, low sugar and fat free items from Indian, continental and Italian cuisines. The Alive restaurants will range from 700-1,500 sq ft in size while a smaller format, Alive Stations will be set up in malls and movie theatres.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
3. Tuesday, July 25, 2006 Stori in expansion mode
Stori, the brand of Chhaya Garments, a Bangalore based apparel company, will be expanding its retail network with an investment of Rs. 150 million. The company will also be increasing its range to offer formal western wear for women and at a later stage introducing kidswear under a new name.
New stores will be opened in Mumbai, Noida and Kolkata. Currently, the company has stores in Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Delhi and Kolkata. In multi brand stores, the company will be focusing on smaller markets, and increasing its presence from 100 outlets to 200 outlets.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
4. Wednesday, July 26, 2006 Longer store hours on the horizon
Metro’s such as Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai are likely to soon allow malls to remain open till 1am. This move is reportedly due to organized retailers constant lobbying the governments to do so. According to Gibson Vedamani, CEO Retailers’ Association of India (RAI), four state governments will be making the changes in the state laws in the next 2-3 months, so that shops can remain open till 1am.
Several retailers such as Spencers and Future Group said that only certain stores will likely remain open longer to cater to working professionals, especially those from the IT and ITeS industries. At present in India, the bulk of the customers visit stores from 5pm to closing time and extended shopping hours will prove beneficial to both customers and retailers.
Source: Economic Times
5. Thursday, July 27, 2006 Landmark plans a Rs. 5 billion turnover in the next 3 years
Book and music chain store, Landmark expects to reach Rs. 5 billion in the net three years, a significant increase from its current Rs. 1 billion. Trent Ltd recently acquired 76% of Landmark. The company plans to set up 20 new stores over the next three years, in both metros and smaller towns. Gurgaon and Pune will have stores opening in September.
There are 7 Landmark stores at present, 3 in Chennai and one each in Kolkata, Mumbai, Baroda and Bangalore. The stores range in size from 15,000 to 45 sq ft and offer a variety of products such as stationary, magazines, gifts, toys besides their core products of books and music.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
6. Thursday, July 27, 2006 Bharti to soon finalize retail partner
Bharti Airtel will be finalizing its international retail partner by September end. According to Rajan Mittal, Joint Managing Director, "The company is talking to one U.S. and two European retail majors, Walmart (U.S.) and Tesco (U.K.) and French Carrefour.”
Source: The Hindu, Chennai
7. Thursday, July 27, 2006 UK companies keen on agri-retail in India
UK companies such as Waitrose, Rothschild Group and the Hindujas are all keen on looking for opportunities in agri services and infrastructure that they can manage without any Indian partners. The Hinduja group is reportedly finalizing on an agri supply chain logistics venture in the country, while the Rothschild group is keen on investing in several state food parks and Special Economic Zones (SEZ) on its own.
Waitrose, which is currently sold exclusively at HyperCITY, plans to source directly from India, while Tesco is likely to invest in agricultural services and infrastructure.
Source: Economic Times
8. Friday, July 28, 2006 Wal-Mart opens another office in India
The Indian government has permitted Wal-Mart to set up 2 offices to explore business opportunities in the Indian retail industry. The offices will most likely be based in Mumbai and Delhi. Other work will include studying the Indian market to base a strategy for India and identifying partners for a potential tie up and other investments.
The new offices will also be responsible for increasing the companies sourcing arrangements to reach $4 billion. The Indian offices will be handled by either the Hong Kong or Singapore offices of Wal-Mart and will be functional by October-November 2006.
Source: Business Standard
9. Friday, July 28, 2006 S. Kumar’s plans a Rs. 36 billion expansion
S. Kumar’s subsidiary Brand house Retails Ltd is planning a Rs. 36 billion expansion plan, as announced by Tarun Joshi, CEO Brandhouse Retails. The subsidiary will focus on managing the brands that S. Kumar’s brings in from overseas.
The company will be bringing in 17 international brands in the next five years. So far, the company has signed an agreement with Escada. The bulk of the remaining brands will be in the luxury and super-premium segments.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
10. Friday, July 28, 2006 Archies plans Rs. 500 million expansion
Archies, India’s largest greeting card retailer will be opening new stores with an investment of Rs. 500 million, to reach 200 company owned stores in the next 2 years. Currently, there are 73 stores in India. Archies plans to grow significantly due to the retail boom, by locating stores in hypermarkets.
Archies secondary brand, Stupid Cupid, which retails fashion accessories, will also increase its stores from 7 to 15 by end 2006. Archies currently accounts for over 50% of the organized greeting card segment has more than 400 franchisees. The company has also tied up with Pantaloon’s Depot in Mangalore and Ahmedabad and will grow with them.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
11. Friday, July 28, 2006 Wal-Mart’s exit from Germany, South Korea will be beneficial for India
Wal-Mart’s decision to exit the German market and sell its stores to Metro, will allow it to focus on its entry to India and expansion in China, according to industry sources. The company had announced in May that it was closing all its 16 stores in South Korea.
According to retail investment firm, Growth Ventures, CEO Love Goel, "Korea and Germany's retail market is too competitive. Secondly, consumers there really aren't aligned with Wal-Mart's core value proposition of offering bottom-barrel prices."
Goel further states that “China and India have among the world's most lucrative retail markets, valued at $700 billion and $300 billion each.” While China has a larger section of its retail industry in the organized sector at 20%, the organized sector in India currently only accounts for 3%.
Amy Wyatt, Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the “Wal-Mart's exit from South Korea and Germany allowed the retailer to "focus on other opportunities like China and India." It is uncertain who its Indian partner will be, although there have several reports about its discussions with DLF for a franchise agreement.
Source: CNN Money.com
12. Friday, July 28, 2006 Reliance promises to build a “Wal-Mart” in India
Reliance Retail is planning to become an Indian Wal-Mart. The company is planning a three pronged retail approach for every city. For example, in Hyderabad, the company plans to have 8 hypermarkets, each of over 75,000 sq ft in space on either a single floor or with a mezzanine level, selling multiple brands of apparel, FMCG, dry and wet groceries and electronics. The next level would be superstores, which would cover 50,000 sq ft in space and also offer multiple brands. The third level would be supermarkets, which would cover 10,000 sq ft in 20 locations and will stock FMCG and grocery items.
Source: Moneycontrol.com
13. Saturday, July 29, 2006 Reliance Retail hopes to reach the top league in retail space
Reliance Retail is targeting covering 100 million sq ft in 10,000 stores once it starts operations later this year, taking it to the same league as Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Tesco in terms of retail space. The company plans to open a network of stores including hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience, specialty and B2B stores, in over 1,500 locations across India by 2010.
Wal-Mart has 6,277 stores across the world, covering 454 million sq ft, Tesco has 2,711 stores in 14 countries, covering 58 million sq ft and Carrefour has 6,987 stores in 21 countries, covering 284 million sq ft. Reliance Retail will have 500,000 employees by 2010, more than Tesco’s 353,000 and Carrefour’s 450,000. Only Wal-Mart has more employees currently, with 1.8 million employees.
India’s current retail leader The Future Group (Pantaloons) will be expanding to cover 30 million sq ft by 2010. Another Indian retailer, Piramyd will be doubling their floor space to 800,000 sq ft by March 2007. According to AT Kearney, the Indian retail industry is growing at 5-6% per year as compared to the global growth rate of 3-4%. Organized retail in India is growing significantly faster at 25-30% per year.
Source: Financial Express
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