Premium Italian baby brand, Chicco, with close to 900 million euro in turnover, is making its presence felt in the Indian market. A 100 per cent fully-owned subsidiary of Artsana SPA, Chicco is now opening stores across India through master franchisees.
Vineeth Nair, CEO, Chicco says, “This year we are going to focus on opening stores in eight cities viz: Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune. In some of these cities we will open two or three stores while in others we will open one store. We are looking at six to eight stores, which will be our flagship stores and will provide the unique Chicco experience.” The brand is also looking at shop-in-shops in key department stores. They have already opened three in Gurgaon, Bangalore and Pune. As for the distribution, toiletries and nursing it will be done through distributors and they aim to reach all major pharmacy chains.
Globally, Artsana spends a huge amount of money on researching and understanding babies. They have a large set-up called Chicco Observatory in Cuomo, Italy, where they are headquartered and another one in San Francisco. They will soon put up the third observatory in New Delhi. “We have already picked up the office space. The observatory has a large panel. In Italy, the panel is as large as 1,800 people consisting of doctors, pediatricians, midwives, teachers and parents. This is a rolling panel of 1,800 people. Their brief is to figure out baby issues and find solutions so most of the products are called solutions rather than products. So if you look at the products the brand offers, some of them are very surprising and from an Indian market perspective critical because there is a lack of information in India and there are a lot of products that would be beneficial from a mother’s point of view, especially the evolving, changing mother,” states Nair.
Catering primarily to infants from 0-3 years, Chicco, presents itself as a benchmark brand in baby care products. For example, their ‘sleep well pillow’ has a couple of bolsters and is special anti-suffocation pillow, which mimics the heartbeat of the mother and has a remarkable soothing effect on the baby. There is another product called Chicco Theremo Precision thermometer that allows taking the temperature of the baby even when kept 10 centimeters away from it. One doesn’t need to touch the baby or wake him up to take the temperature.
Currently, Artsana SPA, a group about 1.5 billion euro in size, is looking at India from two angles. First, to launch Chicco as a brand. And second, as a sourcing hub for their global operations. The idea of Artsana in India is to put together a sourcing set-up for their global operations.
