India,China shine bright on global retail majors’radar
WITH global retail majors increasingly looking to spread their businesses across the world, India and China appear to have emerged as their preferred destinations. So much so, the rise of these two countries as global retail hotspots is posing a challenge to other emerging markets keen to attract investment in organised retail. This is at the heart of a recent global retailing study, christened “2007 Global Powers of Retailing” by the noted international consultancy firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Despite growing anti-globalisation sentiment, the retail world continued to witness globalisation throughout. “Slow growth in many mature markets and not-tobe-missed opportunities in emerging markets — particularly China, India and Russia — are powerful driving forces,” the report states. Citing instances, the study indicates that the leading 250 global retailers conducted business in 5.9 countries in 2005 on an average. “This same group operated in an average of 5.6 countries in 2004 and 5 countries in 2000,” the study notes. Incidentally, only five of the top 250 retailers — Germany’s Metro AG, France’s PPR Group, UK’s Marks & Spencer Plc, South Africa’s Shoprite Holding and Hong Kong’s Dairy Farm International Holdings — have a presence in India. In sharp contrast to the Indian scene, more than 30 players of the top 250 retailers operate in China. Though global economy is riddled with substantial risks, the Deloitte study notes that there is stability in emerging markets like China and India. Besides, the emerging markets of these two countries as well as Russia continued to experience robust economic growth. As per the global retailing study, consumer spending in China has been rising at a furious pace, “thereby making the world’s third-largest retail market very attractive to the world’s leading retailers. India, too, attracted increased attention. Still, government restrictions meant that global retailers had few opportunities in this burgeoning market. Instead, indigenous companies began to invest massively in modernisation and expansion,” the study says.
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