H&M spreads retail footprint beyond metros with stores in four new cities

H&M plans to open stores in new cities across India this year including Kochi, Nagpur, Dehradun and Jalandhar. Each store will spread over 65,000 sq ft housing collections for women, men, teenagers, and children. H&M on of the biggest clothing chain across the globe stocks fast fashion items created in-house and teams up with designers for one-time collections. The Swedish fashion retailer opened its first store in India in 2015. Since then, H&M has expanded across the country’s metros and is now targeting Tier II and III cities for growth. It currently operates 42 stores across Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Amritsar, Indore, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Mohali, Mysore, and Ahmedabad. To cater to a wider audience across India and boost sales, H&M has launched its website and partnered with fashion platform Myntra. The plan is to open 50 stores across India by 2020.

As the world’s second most-populated country, India is an attractive market for US and European brands and has attracted some of the world’s largest private labels that are banking on young consumers increasingly embracing western-style clothing.