Montblanc eyes smaller cities for India expansion

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Dec 30, 2022

Montblanc plans to reach new customers in the Indian market by opening new stores in smaller cities and focusing on travel retail. The luxury accessories and writing instrument brand sees strong growth potential in untapped rural markets and airports. 

“The sale of both writing instruments and other products such as bags, perfume, and accessories have increased but share of other products in overall sale has also grown,” said Montblanc India Private Retail Limited’s CEO Neeraj Walia told the Economic Times. “We are targeting airport retail- both duty free and duty paid to grow as we get [a] variety of customers which we won’t get in a traditional store.” 
 
Montblanc currently operates 11 brick-and-mortar stores in India and has a total of 50 points of sale. The brand aims to reach younger shoppers with its new stores as Montblanc believes engaging this demographic will boost sales. 

“We will be expanding to newer markets and newer cities and channels looking very promising, where we see expansion happening is travel retail,” said Walia. “India as a country has transformed aviation, where more and more airports are coming. When you see flights going across to small towns, the clients coming in from there, exploring new collections, you see a scope for expansion. Those cities may or may not be evolved to the level that there is a luxury retail space present there, but there is definitely a client exploring and waiting for a Montblanc product.”