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Friday, 29 October 2010 |
The K Raheja promoted HyperCity, which became a subsidiary of Shoppers Stop some months ago,
is growing retail space at a compounded annual growth rate of 35-40 per cent over the next five years. Currently, the firm has seven stores in five cities. The new CEO of the company, Mark Ashman says they will add six more stores in the next nine months. He added that Hypercity will target dominating cities where it has an established modern retail presence and also entering new ones as the next stage of growth. He feels given the fragmented way in which Indian retail is growing, there is opportunity to do both. Achieve scale by saturating markets and expanding to new ones and do it profitably. It may be noted that Ashman, has been a part of modern Indian retail since 2007 and was instrumental in establishing the local joint venture between Marks and Spencer Group and Reliance Retail.
Hypercity’s plan includes opening stores of 50,000 sq. ft. in Mumbai, where it has three stores of 100,000 sq. ft. each. The firm plans to set up two stores in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad; it has one in each city currently. “We are close to saturating Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore and Delhi and Chennai are also on my radar,” said Ashman.
He expects improving the mix in private labels for better value and doubling revenue from apparel will increase gross margins as it plans to achieve company level break-even in financial year 2013. The company reported a loss of Rs 18 crores and sales of Rs 150 crores in the last fiscal year. |
