Arvind expect fast scale up of global brands in next 2-3 years

Arvind Lifestyle Brands presently has international brands contributing around 60 percent of their turnover and the rest 40 percent comes from their own brands. According to Arvind Lifestyle Brands MD and CEO J Suresh, it is eyeing up to 70 percent of its total sales coming from the portfolio of international brands it retails in the next two-three years.

Arvind lifestyle, a subsidiary of the country’s largest integrated textile and apparel company Arvind Ltd, will also invest up to Rs 200 crore every year for expansion of its retail network. It plans to add 300 more stores in the next two years, taking the count to around 1,350.

They are planning to add around 150 stores every year. Currently, they have 1,050 stores and will add 300 more stores in two years, Suresh said.

The company has franchise agreement with 14 international brands, including Gap, Calvin Klein and Aeropostale, as well as 12 in-house brands.

As per its strategy, the company offers premium foreign brands for the aspirational class and domestic homegrown brands for the mass segment.

As the country develops in the fashion space, aspiration brands would do very well. They need to take a position there and the same time, in the areas of value segment, they are building their own position because there international brands are not a big draw, he said.

In terms of size, they have five biggest brands Arrow, US Polo and Flying Machine followed by Calvin Klein and Nautica, which are fast scaling up.

The company is also working on ramping up its presence in the e-commerce space. Currently, it’s very small, around 3 to 4 percent, but it would increase as they are strongly looking for omni-channel play. In a full-blown kind of situation, they may reach as big as 15 percent of their total sales from e-commerce.