Dollar Industries forays on the National Stock Exchange

Dollar Industries celebrated their first listing day on National Stock Exchange last Friday. The event saw the ringing of listing bell at 10:00 am at National Stock Exchange, BKC, Mumbai. The event started with the lighting of traditional lamp in the presence of Dindayal Gupta, Chairman, Dollar; Vinod Gupta, MD, Binay Kumar Gupta, Joint MD; Gaurav Jain, MD, Hem Securities, Advisor to the listing; Ishita Vora, Head Primary Markets, National Stock Exchange; Shashi Agarwal, CFO, Dollar Industries; and Rakesh Biyani, an independent Director with Dollar.

Dollar’s journey began in 1972. The proprietary firm Dollar Textiles it became Dollar Textiles Limited in 2005 and Dollar Industries Limited in 2008. Their signature brand is Dollar. Dollar Club had a range of vests and briefs. “We converted that into Dollar Big Boss, which became a sensation in the market. The brand ambassador is Akshay Kumar. It’s been six years with him and our association with Kumar is getting stronger and stronger,” remarks Vinod Gupta, MD, Dollar Industries. “We were the first hosiery company to have micro modal fiber in innerwear. Our overall range has vests, briefs, trunks in the latest cuts and fits. In apparel, we have basic and fashion denim, T-shirts, casual wear like Bermudas and track pants. In winter wear, we have premium thermals for men, women and children.” Dollar has a children’s brand called ‘Champion’ and their women’s wear brand is call Missy also in their basket is casual wear brand called ‘Force’.

Gupta explains they are the first inner wear company in India to have a fully backward integrated manufacturing unit which is located in Jaipur. Then they have a state of the art processing unit equipped with latest processing technology to produce finished raw material in any possible color. The production capacity is 13.5 tons a day and there is a spinning unit. At Dollar R&D plays a major role to ensure products combine fashion and functionality.

An inspirational journey

Gupta says while Dollar is playing the value game through progressive premiumisation, they are catering to the economy segment as well through various initiatives. The economy segment accounted for 45 per cent revenues in 2015-16, translating to Rs 360 crores compared to Rs 356 crores in the preceding year.

Talking about their Shashi Agarwal, CFO, Dollar Industries says, “It has been a great journey for us in the last 45 years. With constant product diversification, we have grown on an average at 13 per cent for the last five years. Last year revenues grew 30.5 per cent. We have 800 distributors and agents across India. They have helped us go deep into the country. We have a presence across 26 states and are in 80,000 MBOs in 800 cities. Our four manufacturing units are in Tirupur, Kolkata, Delhi, Ludhiana. Innovations are a way of life for Dollar. We will continue with the quest for increasing our market value. We will expand our portfolio and enter new markets and provide customer satisfaction.”

Upcoming initiatives

The company is looking to strengthen its aspirational positioning in 2015-16. For years, there were two main segments– economy and premium. During the last fiscal year, the company took the initiative and launched ‘Force NXT’ aimed at the super-premium category. Gupta says, “This extension represents an idea whose time has come. There has been a major rethink on selection of innerwear for super-premium since these products are made of superior yarn fabric and stitched with superior thread. Dollar began to address this segment from the second half of the last fiscal, the benefits will start becoming evident from the current financial year.

Optimism about the future

Talking about future growth prospects, Gupta says, “We are optimistic about generating Rs 1000 crores in revenues in 2016-17 despite economic slowdown and consumer downtrading. The ability to pass on an increase in raw cotton prices should make the achievement of our goal easier in addition to our being able to generate a higher throughput per dealer, address market gaps effectively and increase off take from our premium and super premium categories. In doing so, we believe we would be the fastest in our sector to get to this four-digit benchmark.”

The company keeps tab on latest trends to add value to the Dollar experience. It’s the largest selling Indian inner wear brand in the UAE and Middle East. Dollar owns 15 per cent market share in India, catering to the middle and upper segments. “We want Dollar to be a part of everyone’s life in India and abroad. We want to be a multinational providing trend setting solutions,” sums up Gupta.