Fila triggers growth in India with apparel range

Italian sports brand Fila, that entered the Indian retail space just a year ago, is now focusing on increasing its presence by expanding its product portfolio and retail stores. The brand is launching its sports apparel range and

working on having a proper brand representation in the country. It also plans to set up 60-70 stores pan-India by 2014.

“We are launching gym wear, tennis, running, fitness wear for men. Shortly, we will launch a women’s range too. As far as apparel is concerned, we will launch it all over India at one time. Our experience is that the response has been equally good in the north, the south and the west. The east market has been relatively slower and smaller. India has a large spread but when it comes to metros, what sells in Delhi, sells in Chennai, sells in Bangalore and sells in Mumbai,” says Rajiv Bajaj, CEO, India, Cravatex Ltd (Fila Division).

 Fila’s sportswear collection includes moisture management apparels which are lightweight, body hugging and breathable garments making them technologically superior and suitable for athletes during their strenuous work out regimes. Besides, the brand’s footwear collection consists of all the sub categories in sport- basketball, running, tennis, lifestyle, soccer, cricket- and the response they received was equally good in the north, the south and the west.

Talking about competition amongst the apparel brand in India Bajaj says, many global brands are present in India but the market is growing at a healthy rate of 15 to 18 per cent a year. So there is enough room for more players. “Since the last two or three quarters the large formats are looking forward to our apparels because of our performance in footwear has been excellent. In large formats wherever there is space available we have shop-in-shops. Over a period of time our apparel will be in all large formats like Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle and Westside. We will also be in Planet Sports since it fits into our brand identity,” informs Bajaj.

Fila plans to open a 1,100 sq. ft. flagship store at Linking Road, Mumbai, by the first week of October ’10. “We are already present in 800 MBOs and about 150 key accounts in large format stores. This is for footwear and we will be doing a similar thing for apparel. We have plans for 60 to 70 exclusive stores in the next three to four years. The average size of the stores would be 1,000 to 2,000 sq. ft.  We will start with metros and then get into mini metros and smaller towns. Whether we choose a franchisee depends on the location, size etc.” They are also looking at Tier II-III cities like Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Bhubaneswar, Mysore and Madurai.

The brand will start its fashion cycle with two collections and if required they may go into quarterly. They believe that every location should have some freshness in terms of the merchandise. Meanwhile in the next two to three quarters the brand plans to venture into e-commerce. “We should have a market share of 12 to 15 per cent in the next two to three years.  We are looking at a 25 to 30 per cent growth year-on-year. Moreover in the next three to four years we are looking at a wholesale level turnover of Rs 125 to Rs 150 crores,” concludes Bajaj.