Hrithik Roshan-backed HRX to harness expanding athleisure market for growth

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Nov 20, 2018

The athleisure brand HRX has plans to expand its offline presence and product categories as it sees consistent and continued growth in the Indian athleisure market.

Athleisure is a swiftly expanding category in India’s fashion industry and is expected to grow at a year-on-year rate of 30 percent. The sector, currently valued at Rs 8,500 crore ($1.3 billion), is expected to reach Rs 54,000 crore ($8.1 billion) by 2020, according to HRX’s cofounder, Afsar Zaidi, who expects this to mean considerable growth for his brand.

HRX’s current product categories include HRX Active Wear, HRX Casual, and HRX Yoga and these are available on a number of multi-brand e-commerce platforms including Jabong, Myntra, and Flipkart. New product categories that the brand will soon enter into, according to Zaidi, include sunglasses, personal care, and backpacks.

The brand recently expanded its footwear offerings with that launch of its first performance wear shoe line, Metagrip. The range of sneakers is designed to aid with long-distance running. Footwear has also taken off recently and increased from contributing 35 percent of the brand’s total sales to 50 percent.

Footwear is expected to play a major role in helping the company to achieve a revenue total of Rs 300 crore for the current fiscal year which would be in line with the brand’s trend of 100 percent year-on-year growth. The brand predicts an Rs 500 crore turnover by 2020.

The first brick-and-mortar HRX store is planned for Bengaluru with other cities including Pune, Delhi NCR, and Mumbai to follow. Planned locations include malls and high streets and the average store size will be around 2,000 square feet. The brand will, however, continue to be an online-led enterprise.