FBB by Future Group plans to enter global top 10 fashion brands

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 25, 2018

Future Group’s Kishore Biyani is confident that his value fashion brand FBB will enter the top ten performing global fashion brands in the 2019 financial year and aims to sell 320 to 350 million clothing items.

“Our fashion business has been doing exceedingly well,” said Biyani in a statement. “FBB will be amongst the top ten in the world this year by sales volume despite selling in just one country, whereas the other retailers in that list have multi-country operations.”

The current top ten performing fashion retailers have been named by the Japanese business Fast Retailing as Inditex (Zara), H&M, Fast Retailing, Gap, L Brands, PVH (Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger), Ralph Lauren, Next, American Eagle Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Esprit. Biyani is confident that FBB will make this list.

FBB sold around 200 million clothing items during the previous financial year and so its current target will require a large increase in sales. Such a rise would cause revenue to increase by around 40 percent to 18,000 crore rupees (approximately 2.7 billion US dollars) compared to around 13,000 crore rupees (approximately two billion dollars) last fiscal. This figure includes sales from Fbb and its other brands Brand Factory, Central, and Lee Cooper among others.

One way that FBB aims to increase sales is through footwear, aiming to overtake Bata and become India’s largest shoe retailer in the coming year. As part of this plan, N Mohan, the former CEO of Aerosoles Europe, has been hired as the Director of the business’ footwear segment.

Store openings will also be rolled out to increase sales. Brand Factory plans to reach a total of 110 stores from its current 65 and Central stores will also be opened nationwide. No investment figures have been released but Biyani has a busy year planned for his fashion operations.