Lulu to step into Indian shores

M A Yusuffali, the Gulf-based entrepreneur, wants to enter India’s retail market in 2012

with Kerala’s biggest shopping mall. Incidentally, he also hails from Kerala. His retail operations cover not just Dubai, but all the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council and Yemen and Egypt. He was the first foreigner to be elected to the board of the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industries and heads the same group that runs the well known Lulu chain of supermarkets, department stores, hypermarkets and shopping malls. Lulu’s first hypermarket opened in Dubai in 2000. Today, it’s a value-for-money brand and is a household name with a network of 93 stores. It employs 27,000 people drawn from 29 nationalities. More than 19,000 of these employees are Indians. In fact, Lulu Group, a subsidiary of Emke Group, based in Abu Dhabi, will open its first mall in India in the first quarter of next year. The mall will include one of the company's trademark hypermarkets. The 2.2 million sq. ft. Lulu Shopping Mall, which will be one of the largest malls in India, will open in Kochi, Kerala, at a cost of more than $353.9 million. Once the mall is established, the company hopes to expand the brand further in India's fragmented but lucrative retail market

About 4,35,000 shoppers walk into Lulu stores every day and the chain controls roughly a third of the UAE’s organized retail market. Over the past three weeks alone, Lulu has rolled out five stores across the Gulf, and has a target to reach 100 stores. The legendary Yusuffali M A is an entrepreneur and involved in many social, charitable and humanitarian activities both in India as well as in Gulf countries stores within this year. Lulu offers an ultra modern shopping ambience. He’s involved in many social, charitable and humanitarian activities both in India as well as in the Gulf.