Indiantelevision.com Team

(24 May 2008 4:30 pm)

BANGALORE: Readymade apparel manufacturer and retailer Koutons Retail India Ltd plans to increase the number of stores to 1,800 by the end of this fiscal, and has identified 32 tier I and II cities for its expansion plans in the south.

Koutons opened its 1,214 outlet, which is also its largest, measuring 9,000 square feet, in Bangalore today. This is Koutons 15th outlet in the Garden City.

The company, which has a large presence in north, west and eastern India, now plans to focus on the south. Koutons plans to open 100 large stores in southern India by the end of this year.

"Bangalore is the fourth largest market for apparel, FMCG and consumables in India," informed Koutons chairman DPS Kohli. "Generally our store sizes are around 1,500 to 2,000 square feet. We will probably come up with another outlet of around 6,000 square feet here."

"Koutons will continue to focus on maintaining and reinforcing the image of its existing exclusive brand outlets and also introduce its apparel to new geographical areas and assessing fashion trends, making fashion forecasts and offering products to match the global fashion movements. We try to keep the mantra of Koutons Retail India Ltd. 'fashion & quality at affordable prices'," added Kohli.

Koutons spent around Rs 300 million towards its mass media communications, which include radio jingles and television advertisements.

This year the company's advertisement budget is Rs 500 million.

The company has launched a ladies range of western apparel under the sub-brand 'Les Femmes' and kids wear under the sub brand 'Koutons Junior'.

"This year we will have television ads on channels that have a large women audience - these could be soaps on national as well as regional television to promote our women's apparel. For the kids wear, we plan to advertise on three children's channel," informed Koutons managing director B S Sawhney while speaking with www.indiantelevision,com.

Kohli pegs the annual Indian apparel market size as Rs.1,220 billion, around Rs.220 billion of which is the organized sector's piece of overall pie. He further informs that the market is growing y-o-y by about 30 pe rcent, with 22 per cent of the growth being contributed by the organised sector.

Koutons reported net sales growing by 97 per cent for the year ended March 31, 2008 to Rs 7.935 billion, as compared to Rs 4.024 billion in the year-ago period, while PAT for the year ended 31 March, 2008 rose by 100 percent to Rs 690.8 million, as against Rs 344.9 million posted in the same period of last fiscal.