Metro AG global chief executive officer Steffen Greubel said the company is at a “very advanced” level of discussions on its India business, suggesting for the first time that it could be looking at an exit from the country soon.

“We are very advanced in the process regarding India and are at a certain maturity level in the process. It’s too early to share any information, but we have discussed it greatly,” Greubel told analysts when asked if he is looking at a possible withdrawal from India and the status of talks. “We are very deep in the (sale) process in India,” he said last week while announcing annual earnings.

The German wholesaler grew its Indian business by 21% to $982 million during the year ended September, as per its latest annual report.

Last month, ET reported that Reliance had agreed in principle to buy Metro AG’s cash-and-carry wholesale India business for ₹4,000-4,500 crore.

Its unit Reliance Retail is already the biggest grocery retailer in the country with over 2,400 stores across formats while Metro operates 31 wholesale stores in India with seven of them on company owned land in prime locations. The company hasn’t publicly stated that it’s looking to leave India. Metro would be the second big international wholesaler retailer to exit India, if this happens. French retailer Carrefour wound up its India business in 2014 after struggling with sales for four years.

Globally, Metro is the world’s fourth-largest retailer by revenue. In India, it doesn’t sell directly to consumers and is an organised wholesaler or cash-and-carry operator that sells merchandise to local kirana stores, hotels and catering firms.

It decided to put the India business on the block as part of a global decision to exit the country due to heightened competition, a tougher regulatory environment and the lack of a level playing field between local and foreign retail companies, industry executives said.

Experts said the difficult European and global economic environment, regulatory restrictions in India, tough competition from domestic Indian groups and thin margins in the B2B business in India may have led Metro to focus on growing its core markets in Europe.

“Though India is, indeed, a long-term strategic market for companies looking at global growth, whether retail or B2B, not every business model from other geographies can be successfully transplanted or rapidly scaled in India, and Metro’s business footprint in India may be far smaller than they may have expected in the two decades of presence here,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight. The choice to be present in different countries is always a dynamic one for global retailers and entry or withdrawal is driven by individual strategies, rather than solely on the merit of the market itself, he said.

“In September, the management board reported on the current status of the audit of strategic options for Metro India,” according to the annual report.

Overseas investment in offline trade has been a tricky issue, despite India allowing 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in wholesale trade on a cash-and-carry basis. Metro was one of the first companies to enter the segment in India in 2003. Lobby groups representing small Indian retailers have accused overseas retailers of violating FDI rules, which the foreign companies have consistently denied. Some trade lobbies have complained to the government that a few global wholesalers have been flouting FDI rules by selling to consumers directly, which is not allowed as per current regulations.

(Published in The Economic Times)

Faizan Haider, The Economic Times

New Delhi, 5 December 2022

Shoppers Stop is planning to open a value format to attract consumers opting for lower priced brands such as Tata Zudio and Landmark Group’s Max, two officials privy to the launch said.

The idea is to open stores on ty to sustain and the lines of Zudio and Max and capture a larger market especially in smaller towns,” one of them said. “The first store, sizes anywhere between 7,000 8,000 square feet could open in the next three months.”

Shoppers Stop is foraying in to the mass-priced segment after three decades of selling premium apparel and lifestyle merchandise. Experts said India’s consumption structure has been skewed in the past over a narrow base of richer consumers accounting for a large chunk of the overall market. However, as the economy is broadening across many more cities and the impact is reaching further down the income ladder, the opportunity for value-formats and value-brands is expanding.

“Shoppers Stop’s competitors have demonstrated mixed success in the mass segment. and servicing this segment needs merchandising agility to respond to varying customer preferences across markets, as well as the financial ability to sustain and scale,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight. “In the diversity of India’s market, scale alone isn’t enough to guarantee success.”

Shoppers Stop may open first few of its value format stores in tier 2 cities before taking them to metroci ties, people cited above said.

The company did not respond to the email query till press time on Sunday.

“The value format segment is growing and during Covid 19 we have seen consumption increasing in Tier-2 cities,” said Shriram PM Monga, cofounder at retail consultancy firm SRED.

“These cities also have grade A malls now, offering retailers quality space.” Tata Group firm Trent had earlier indicated that Westside accounts for 70% of its standalone business but Zudio, an affordable fast-fashion brand, has the potential to outpace the department chain due to the size of the opportunity in the value segment.

For Lifestyle International, its value brands Max and Easy Buy have already outpaced the department stores by sales – back in 2019 – indicating that consumers are increasingly seeking either lower-priced merchandise or opting for global brands such as Zara and H&M for fashion apparel instead of department stores.

Shoppers Stop has 296 stores spread across 3.8 million square feet, which include 91 department stores, 11 HomeStop home furnishing shops, 139 beauty stores, and 25 airport doors. It is on track to add 12 department stores and 15 beauty stores during this fiscal year.

According to Retailers Association of India (RAI), overall retail sales in October 2002 grew 15% year on year and by 19% when compared to pre- pandemic sales level (October 2019).

(Published in The Economic Times)

Sagar Malviya, ET Bureau

November 28, 2022

About half a dozen global apparel and lifestyle brands expanded anywhere between 30% and 70% to garner combined annual revenues of nearly $2 billion in FY22, reversing the performance from a year ago when Covid-induced curbs on mobility and business operations caused sales to shrink.

Sales of Swedish fashion retailer H&M expanded 49% while rival Zara reported a 61% increase in its topline. Japanese brand Uniqlo saw a 64% jump in sales while American denim maker Levi Strauss posted a 58% increase, latest filings with the Registrar of Companies showed. Dubai-based department store Lifestyle International, too, saw a 38% jump in revenues on a large base while German brand Puma expanded 68% despite being the biggest firm in the sporting segment.

“This is a combined impact of a rebound in industry-wide demand in India, a low base effect for some brands, and the visibility and mindshare advantage global brands have,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a strategy consulting firm.

Big Focus on Online Sales

“Global brands are aspirational not only for consumers but also for real estate developers. Perceived as anchor tenants, they get their choice of the best locations – this provides more impetus to their stores vis-a-vis Indian brands, which are shunted to higher floors in multi-level shopping spaces,” Dutta said.

The revenue surge comes at a time when most of these retailers are facing intensifying competition from both local and global rivals in an increasingly crowded market where web-commerce firms continue to offer steep discounts. Even multinational companies have upped their online focus and for some, web-based orders make up more than a third of their revenues.

For instance, Puma India’s online sales make up nearly half its total business, while for H&M the share is 42%.

Abhishek Ganguly, managing director, Puma India and Southeast Asia, said the affinity of young Indian consumers toward ecommerce is extremely high and that adoption of the online mode of shopping continues to accelerate even after the resumption of normal business operations.

“Consumers may have bought online for the first time during the lockdowns, but they have embraced ecommerce in their shopping journey,” said Ganguly.

“Almost half of our business is in the form of digital commerce today. Having said that, we are witnessing equally strong growth – both in our offline and online channels,” he said.

As the world’s second most-populated country, India is an attractive market for aspirational apparel brands as rising disposable incomes cause the consuming base of the pyramid to broaden further. The performance by global brands is also in line with the overall trend within the home-grown apparel and lifestyle segment, with Shoppers Stop, Tata-owned Trent and Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail also reporting smart performance rebounds, indicating a secular demand for discretionary products.

(Published in Economic Times)

Chloe Cornish, Financial Times (select extracts)

Mumbai, November 19, 2022

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s oil-to-data conglomerate Reliance Industries, India’s biggest single listed company by market capitalisation, profits most from its refinery, the world’s largest. But Reliance wants to embed itself in India’s towns and cities by dominating the $800bn retail market as well, from partnerships with luxury fashion houses like Balenciaga to acquiring a Coca-Cola copycat.

Despite being India’s biggest retailer by revenues, Reliance’s 16-year-old shopping unit has often been overlooked, as Ambani’s Jio mobile network stole the limelight in transforming India’s data landscape.

Taking advantage of restrictions that hamper foreign companies’ ability to compete in India’s fragmented retail sector, still largely made up of mom and pop shops, Reliance is expanding its shopping empire at a rate of seven stores a day, using acquisitions to accelerate growth and investing around $3.6bn last financial year. It has 16,000 stores across India, while online purchases contribute 17 per cent of revenues, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

India’s tycoons have long ventured into consumer businesses, from the Tata family, once best known for steel and now also boasting jewellery stores and a joint venture with Starbucks, to industrialists like Aditya Birla, whose conglomerate includes a large fashion business. Reliance, however, has aimed to control entire supply chains, all the way from the petrochemicals in the fibres it uses to produce textiles.

“The ethos of the group is dominance,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of Gurgaon-headquartered retail consultancy Third Eyesight. “Unless other businesses step up to the plate, their dominance is a foregone conclusion.”

In its latest potential acquisition, Retail has reportedly bid $500mn for German wholesaler Metro’s Indian business. Indian rules allow foreign companies to own 100 per cent of a cash and carry business, but only if they do not sell directly to consumers. Reliance, by contrast, could unlock value by extending the business to sell direct to shoppers through Metro’s 31 distribution centres, said a person familiar with the company’s thinking.

Reliance has also announced it will launch its own fast-moving consumer goods company by the end of this year. The person close to the company said it would look to acquire brands to build the business, akin to its August deal for Campa, a nostalgic Indian fizzy drink, as well as exploring licensing and joint ventures.

While its ecommerce business JioMart has recently tied up with WhatsApp, owned by Reliance investor Meta, to increase its online reach, Reliance further boosted its physical shop space this year. It swooped to thwart potential foreign competitor Amazon in a battle over failing shopping group Future Retail.

Reliance Retail recorded quarterly revenue of around $8bn for the three months ending September 30, earning a net profit of $283mn, a 36 per cent increase year-on-year.

Reliance Retail declined to comment for this story.

Additional reporting by Andrea Rodrigues in Mumbai

New Delhi: The launch of online shopping experience by WhatsApp, along with Jio platforms, the holding company for the digital services businesses of Reliance Industries (RIL), will help these companies to take on e-commerce behemoths such as Jeff Bezos-controlled Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart.

Experts are of the view that the partnership will give JioMart, the e-commerce platform of RIL, around 48.7 crore WhatsApp users in India. At present, the total annualised active e-commerce users in the country are only 20 crore.

Rohan Agarwal, partner at research firm Redseer, told Business Standard: “WhatsApp is the primary messaging app for most Indians and the partnership shows the level of access JioMart would have to reach out to them.”

He went on add that it would help in expanding the reach of the e-commerce to users who might not be accessing online retail platforms.

To recap, speaking at the 45th AGM of RIL on Monday (August 29), Isha Ambani, director, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), gave a presentation on placing online grocery orders using Meta-owned WhatsApp and making payments.

In a global first, JioMart on WhatsApp will aid users in India, including first-time online shoppers, to have a new shopping experience in ordering a wide range of groceries on WhatsApp. They will be able to shop via JioMart’s entire grocery catalogue by easily selecting their favourite items. Also, they will be able to add these products to the cart and pay without leaving the WhatsApp chat.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Meta, said the association with JioMart would enable people to buy groceries from JioMart in a single chat.

Agarwal highlighted that most of the online grocery businesses generate from big cities and this alliance will be an opportunity for small cities and towns.

The financial daily quoted Devangshu Dutta, CEO, Third Eyesight, as saying that the partnership will have a big impact on the entire e-commerce industry.

Dutta added that the crucial thing for both companies to be successful is to create a delivery process that is quick and cost-effective.

Source: timesnownews