Pantaloon Retail looks to expand in South India

PANTALOON Retail is betting big on the southern market and is expecting one third of its revenue to come from its apparel format - Pantaloon Fresh Fashion outlets, in the region. Expanding its footprint in the south the company is targetting 25 Fresh Fashion stores across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala over one and a half years. Each Pantaloon Fresh Fashion store will have an investment outlay of around Rs 3 crore amounting to total investment of Rs 75 crore. With this planned expansion the retail major is expecting a tenfold jump in the contribution to its total revenue from the south. Currently eight Fresh Fashion stores in the south contribute 24% to the total revenue, which was Rs 795 crore for quarter ending December, 2006. This is expected to be over 33% within one and a half year. “South is doing very well for us. Going forward Bangalore alone should be able to crack 10 apparel outlets. Excluding Bangalore, Pantaloon Retail plans to have 10 apparel stores in Karnataka. We will soon be launching apparel outlets in the tier IIcities like Mysore and Hubli also,” Rohit Malhotra, head-operations (South Zone), Pantaloon Retail told ET. Bangalore has two Fresh Fashion stores as of now and one more will be added by this month-end. Mangalore also has one Pantaloon Fresh Fashion store. In Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh too Pantaloon is targetting tier-II cities like Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem, Calicut, Trivandrum, Vizag and Vijayawada. Each of these tier II cities will have one apparel outlet each. Pantaloon is also launching its first apparel store in Cochin (Kerala) in June, 2007. Nationally the existing number of Pantaloon Fresh Fashion outlets stands at 27.

Courtesy: EconomicTimes
For more detail on Retail India visit: http://www.retailindia.tv/