Aditya Birla Fashion plans massive retail expansion

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Feb 18, 2020

Aditya Birla Fashion Retail Limited (ABFRL) is planning to strengthen its retail presence across the country with the addition of more than 500 new outlets this year.
 

Despite the economic slowdown, ABFRL will be investing heavily to expand its brick-and-mortar network and confident of generating strong sales on the back of this retail expansion.
 
The company is targeting consumers shifting from the unorganised market to branded apparel and will focus on ethnic wear for future growth.

“The general consumption habits are changing, especially in a digitally connected network, when you are seeing a desire for brands and aspiration for better quality products. There is a very large upgradation and movement to buy brands and the opportunity in a country like India will keep emerging from new markets,” Ashish Dikshit, managing director at ABFRL, told the Economic Times.
 
“One of the segments we have always sort of stayed away from was ethnic wear because we thought it was fragmented, (and that the) ability to build brands will be lower. We have now realised we are missing a very large opportunity. Womenswear is 40% of the overall apparel market, and three-fourths of that is traditional,” Dikshit added.
 
Last year, ABFRL had acquired stakes in ethnic wear brand Jaypore and Finesse International Design, which runs bespoke apparel retail brand Shantanu & Nikhil.
 
Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited is one of India’s largest fashion companies with a network of over 3,000 stores, and presence across 24,000 multi-brand outlets and over 6,200 point-of-sales in department stores across India.