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September 1, 2026
Pritha Pahari, The Core
1 September 2026
Reliance has spent more than a decade bringing together a long list of names such as Burberry and Tiffany & Co. to India. Its latest focus seems to be luxury celebrity brands, adding global pop star Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty and now media personality Kim Kardashian’s shapewear label SKIMS to its luxury brands portfolio.
Isha Ambani, executive director of Reliance Retail, has fronted most of these announcements herself.
Meanwhile, Nykaa, the beauty platform Reliance Retail keeps getting compared to, spent the last year going after some of the same celebrity founders.
In August 2025, Fenty Beauty moved from Nykaa’s platform to an exclusive deal with Reliance’s Sephora India and Tira. In June 2026, Nykaa answered by signing pop star Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty. A month later, Reliance landed SKIMS.
India’s luxury and celebrity-brand market is split between Reliance’s scale and Nykaa’s beauty expertise, with Fenty, Rare Beauty and SKIMS showing how ownership, reach and brand fit are shaping who gets the biggest names.
Big Brands, Different Bets
Reliance wins brands through scale (20,169 stores, 396 million customers) and ownership ties; Fenty’s move to Sephora India is less a market choice than an internal LVMH routing decision, given LVMH’s stakes in both Fenty and Sephora.
But Nykaa is holding its own by competing on specialism, not size; its beauty-literate audience and curated community pulled in Rare Beauty and Chanel.
The brand fit, not just distribution muscle, still decides who signs where, and some brands (like Birkenstock) skip both platforms entirely.
The economics behind these deals are harder to pin down than the headlines suggest. None of the three — Fenty, Rare Beauty, or SKIMS — have disclosed minimum guarantees, royalty rates, or sales targets for their India entries; these are announced as partnerships, not filed joint ventures.
SKIMS raised $225 million in November 2025 at a $5 billion valuation, nearing $1 billion in annual net sales.
Fenty tells a different story: $450 million in 2024 sales, now valued at $1-2 billion, down sharply from a $2.8 billion estimate in 2021, with Jay-Z’s MarcyPen Capital Partners in talks to buy LVMH’s stake.
Rare Beauty’s India entry rides on Nykaa’s own momentum; the company’s revenue from operations rose 29% year on year (YoY) to Rs 2,782 crore in Q1 FY27, up from Rs 2,154.9 crore a year earlier. In the last quarter of FY26, revenue stood at Rs 2,648.1 crore.
The Core has reached out to Reliance and Nykaa for their response, and will update this report if and when they respond.
Why Fenty Chose Reliance
Fenty’s move looks more like an internal one, according to Suumit Kapoor, a brand growth consultant.
LVMH owns 50% of Fenty Beauty through its beauty incubator Kendo Brands, a stake it has held since co-founding the brand with Rihanna in 2017. LVMH also owns Sephora globally, and Sephora in India is run by Reliance.
“When Fenty enters a new market through Sephora, LVMH is effectively distributing its own equity stake through its own global retail infrastructure,” Kapoor said. For a brand with that kind of ownership overlap, he added, the choice of partner is “close to an internal routing decision” and not a genuine trade-off.
That ownership overlap is itself now in a pickle.
LVMH has been exploring a sale of its 50% Fenty stake since October 2025, working with investment bank Evercore, according to Reuters. As of June 2026, American rapper and businessman, Jay-Z’s investment firm MarcyPen Capital Partners was reported to be among the parties in talks to buy it.
No sale has closed yet, so the Reliance-Sephora-LVMH alignment still holds for now, but it isn’t guaranteed to outlast the current ownership structure.
Fenty’s India journey backs this up. The brand’s first India listing wasn’t through Reliance at all.
It ran on Nykaa’s Cross Border Store, a low-commitment digital shelf that was discontinued before Fenty’s August 2025 relaunch, an exclusive omnichannel deal with Reliance spanning more than 50 stores across 16 cities on day one.
Kapoor doesn’t think of the switch as a deliberate strategic upgrade.
“The Cross Border Store listing may simply have underperformed on its own terms, without much marketing support behind it,” he said, adding that there is no clear evidence that Reliance stole the brand away.
Devangshu Dutta, founder of the research firm Third Eyesight, said celebrity backing only buys a brand little room.
“When a company or an investor buys into an early-stage celebrity brand, they are acquiring instant brand equity which acts as a top-of-the-funnel magnet and potentially lower CAC,” he said. “However, the ‘fame premium’ runs out if product and service execution isn’t compelling enough to drive repeat business and customer retention.”
Ownership decides the biggest deals before “competition” even enters the picture, Fenty landed at Reliance’s Sephora because LVMH owns half of each, though that alignment is shakier than it looks, with Jay-Z’s MarcyPen Capital Partners now the leading bidder for LVMH’s Fenty stake.
Beyond ownership, it’s a straight trade-off.
For brands chasing scale, Reliance’s tens of thousands of stores will get you reach. If brands want to chase community, Rare Beauty did by picking Nykaa specifically to tap its affluent, digitally engaged beauty shoppers and build loyalty. Some brands skip the fight altogether, like Birkenstock, which walked into India solo.
The Distribution Gap
Where Reliance doesn’t need an ownership story to make its case is scale. Reliance Retail closed the quarter ended June 2026 with 20,169 stores across 78.4 million square feet, 396 million registered customers, and 568 million transactions in that single quarter, up 46% year on year, according to the company’s Q1 FY27 earnings release. JioMart alone served 5,500 pincodes through its rapid delivery network in the same period.
Nykaa, by comparison, operated 324 physical stores across 105 cities as of its FY26 numbers, with a cumulative customer base of around 42 million, per its own disclosures and Business Standard’s reporting on the company’s results.
“That gap generally buys a brand not just bigger numbers, but reaches into places where a beauty specialist has no reason to be,” Kapoor said. For brands thinking beyond beauty into wellness, gifting, or lifestyle crossovers, he said that scale “is not a nice-to-have. It is the entire argument for choosing Reliance over a beauty-only platform.”
Satish Meena, founder of Datum Intelligence, a research firm, made a similar point on Reliance’s pull with brands weighing an India entry.
“With the kind of strength they have, they can always give a better deal,” he said, referring to Reliance’s ability to commit capital and guarantee scale that a newer entrant typically cannot promise on its own. He pointed to Reliance’s existing retail relationships, including Marks & Spencer, as part of the track record that makes brands comfortable signing with the group.
Experts say over the past two to three years, Nykaa has been the more prolific launch platform for major international beauty brands, while Reliance has had greater strength in international luxury and fashion.
According to experts, Nykaa reported more than 70 luxury-brand additions over the last three years, including names such as NARS, Prada Beauty, La Prairie, Chanel Beauty, Armani Beauty and Maison Margiela. Reliance, meanwhile, has built a luxury portfolio spanning Valentino, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Tiffany & Co., Burberry and others, and most recently brought SKIMS to India. Reliance’s public disclosures do not provide a comparable 2–3-year count of new international brand entries.
Reliance is arguably a major gateway for international luxury/fashion, but calling it the default gateway for international brands overall is too broad.
Where Nykaa Still Wins
Reliance’s advantage on raw numbers doesn’t fully explain why Nykaa keeps landing brands too.
Nykaa built its beauty audience before it built its stores, using tutorials and curated storytelling to create what Kapoor called “a beauty-literate customer base that arrives already primed to trust the platform’s recommendations.”
That specialism is what pulled in Rare Beauty. Nykaa’s June 2026 launch made the brand available through its website, app, and 30 stores nationwide, and came from a company reporting its highest quarterly profit since listing at the time, per its own disclosures.
In a company statement announcing the launch, Anchit Nayar, Nykaa Beauty’s executive director and CEO, said the brand fit a “new generation of highly informed and globally engaged consumers seeking elevated brand experiences.” Rare Beauty’s chief executive, Scott Friedman, said in the same announcement that India was “a very important market” for the brand, citing Nykaa’s beauty community in the country as the reason to partner with it specifically.
Nykaa has run a similar playbook before. Chanel strengthened its India fragrance and beauty presence on Nykaa in 2025, Obagi Medical entered India through the platform specifically for its clinically driven skincare positioning, and Estee Lauder’s incubation arm has run its India beauty programme, Beauty and You, with Nykaa as lead partner every year since 2022.
Dutta pointed to Kay Beauty, Nykaa’s own celebrity line with actor Katrina Kaif, as an example of why platform fit matters as much as platform size. Contrasting it with 82°E, actor Deepika Padukone’s skincare brand on Tira, he said Kay Beauty had two advantages: it was priced for a much larger audience, and it had “Nykaa’s active participation across channels for merchandising and visibility.”
Not The Only Door
Reliance’s pull is real, but it isn’t the only route into India.
Reliance benefits from international-brand partnerships through retail economics, distribution and, in some cases, ownership or joint-venture economics. The potential conflict emerges because Reliance can simultaneously act as a brand’s market-entry partner and control substantial retail and digital routes to consumers. Public filings, however, do not establish that Reliance uses this position to disadvantage partner brands or competing retailers.
Meena pointed to Birkenstock, which entered by opening its own stores rather than partnering with either platform. Birkenstock and similar labels operate as single-brand retail; they can use India’s foreign direct investment rules to set up shop directly, bypassing the need for a local partner altogether.
“If the brands think that they have enough pull in the market and they can bring customers, they are opening these stores without any partnership,” Meena said. He added that most global brands take the partner route anyway because India, for many of them, is still a small share of global sales, and testing the market with an established partner for a few years is lower risk than building from scratch.
Kapoor flagged one risk worth watching no matter which partner a brand picks. Exclusive deals give a retailer more control. But Tira has also started building its own private-label products, including a colour cosmetics line, and sells them in the same stores as the global brands it distributes.
“A retailer can be a brand’s distribution partner and, on an adjacent shelf, its competitor, at the same time,” he said, a tension he noted that Nykaa’s marketplace model, without a comparable private label push against premium brands, does not carry in the same way.
For brands already tied to Reliance through ownership, like Fenty, there isn’t much of a decision to make. For everyone else, Nykaa signing Rare Beauty and Reliance signing SKIMS within weeks of each other shows this fight for celebrity founders in India is far from over.
(Published in The Core)
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July 20, 2026
Kartikay Kashyap, Financial Express / Brandwagon
30 July 2026
Wendy’s first foray into India’s quick service restaurant (QSR) market in 2015 remained a non-starter. Sierra Nevada Restaurants, the then master franchisee, could not scale its retail presence beyond four conventional restaurants concentrated largely in Delhi-NCR. This limited physical availability, brand awareness and ordering frequency.
Ten years on and under a new master franchisee Rebel Foods since 2023, Wendy’s seems to have turned over a new leaf. With more than 250 stores, and ₹200 crore in revenues, the brand wants to be the one-stop destination for the younger generation where consumers come together to celebrate food, music and a sense of community. “The longer-term ambition is to expand to approximately 500 locations by 2028 through a combination of delivery kitchens and physical restaurants,” says Joy Bamania, brand head, Wendy’s India.
As a first step, Rebel Foods recently opened what it calls its “dynamic cultural flagship store” in Delhi’s vibrant student hub of Hudson Lane, GTB Nagar. The two-level youth-centric space blends food, music and anime, offering fans experiences like live rap battles, meet-and-greets, and specialised menu items like the signature Teriyaki Burger range.
“It has been designed to be livelier, more youthful and visually engaging—an Instagram-worthy space. It is a physical expression of how we want consumers to experience Wendy’s in India: bold, fun, culturally relevant and full of energy,” says Bamania.
Even before taking over Wendy’s operations Rebel Foods had been managing its delivery-only cloud kitchens since 2020 and was familiar with the brand’s DNA and what was required to mount a serious challenge in the ₹15,000-plus crore organised burger restaurants market in the country. The low capex delivery-only model has helped to improve its gross margins, but taking on established brands like McDonalds, KFC and Burger King would be a completely new ball game.
Is the latecomer up to a second bout in the ring?
New, improved
Wendy’s has at least three things going against it. It arrived late on India’s shores and couldn’t really stand apart during its last outing. “No matter how big a global brand you are, you need to stand out in the clutter,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder & CEO, Third Eyesight.
So while McDonald’s is the kid-first family restaurant, Burger King is intentionally “imperfect” and rides on humour, pop-culture moments, and viral marketing. Wendy’s, say experts, had no differentiation than just being a global brand.
Its premium pricing was another bugbear. In its first foray, Wendy’s tried to justify its higher prices saying its ingredients were better than that offered by the rest of the pack. So while the price of a Wendy’s entry level burger was ₹100, McDonald’s retailed one at half that price. “In the QSR business, you have to get your price right. There is nothing ‘premium’ in that space,” says Ankur Bisen, senior partner, The Knowledge Company. Rebel Foods addressed these problems with four fundamental shifts.
First, it used the existing technology, kitchen and supply-chain infrastructure to rapidly expand Wendy’s beyond Delhi-NCR. Second, it built a stronger and more accessible value architecture while introducing flavours suited to Indian preferences. Third, it created an omnichannel model in which cloud kitchens delivered reach and convenience, while selected dine-in restaurants built visibility and deeper brand experiences. Finally, it adopted a data-led approach to menu development, pricing, consumer feedback and operational performance.
Rebel Foods became Wendy’s master franchisee in India in 2023. At that stage, Wendy’s had approximately 90 locations across 19 cities. By March 2025, the brand had reached 200 locations across more than 50 cities, including 15 dine-in restaurants.
“The fivefold revenue growth has consequently not come from one product or campaign. It is the result of wider distribution, sharper value, continuous menu innovation, stronger operational execution and a much clearer proposition for the Indian consumer,” says Bamania.
(Published in Financial Express)
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June 30, 2026
Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, MINT
30 June 2026, Mumbai
Advent International-backed Modenik Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd is doubling down on its portfolio of legacy innerwear brands, planning to scale each label into a sizeable business rather than rely on a single flagship brand.
“Each of the brands must grow big enough to be called a company of its own,” Shekhar Tewari, chief executive and executive director, told Mint.
The company has four brands: premium women’s innerwear label Enamor, value brand Slimz, mass-premium men’s label Dixcy Scott, and premium men’s innerwear brand Levi’s. “These brands are very strong in their respective segments. They complement each other rather than compete,” Tewari said.
Levi’s Innerwear is priced between ₹250 and ₹550, Dixcy Scott and Slimz between ₹100 and ₹350, while Enamor’s products start at ₹500 and go beyond ₹2,500.
The strategy comes as India’s innerwear market, particularly women’s lingerie, has become one of the country’s most fiercely contested apparel categories, with established retailers and digital-first brands vying for market share.
Modenik’s focus on innerwear deepened after private equity firm Advent brought Enamor and Dixcy together under Modenik Lifestyle, following its acquisition of Enamor from Gokaldas Exports in 2019.
Both brands had expanded into adjacent categories such as athleisure, loungewear, sleepwear and outerwear, but struggled to keep pace with rising competition from fashion retailers and digital-first brands. The company has since exited much of its outerwear portfolio, taking a revenue hit.
“We took a conscious hit on the top line because we wanted to become a focused innerwear company,” Tewari said. “If you’re trying to be everything to everyone, you end up not being known for anything. We wanted consumers to think of us first when they think of innerwear.”
Revenue has remained largely flat at around ₹1,200 crore over the past three years, though losses have narrowed sharply. FY25 revenue stood at ₹1,224 crore, while net loss halved to ₹24.8 crore from ₹50.8 crore a year earlier.
Modenik aims to outpace the industry’s single-digit growth by increasing branded penetration in women’s innerwear, expanding its premium portfolio and adding exclusive store network, expected to cross 100 outlets in the near term.
The company sees significant headroom in women’s innerwear, where it estimates the market at more than ₹20,000 crore, but organised brands account for only ₹3,000-4,000 crore. It expects formalization, premiumization and product innovation to accelerate brand adoption.
According to Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of retail consultancy Third Eyesight, the market’s increasing fragmentation makes a multi-brand strategy more effective.
“You can’t have one brand stretching across multiple segments. The product has to be different, pricing strategies are different, the messaging and the distribution channel mix also varies depending on the consumer segment you’re trying to target,” he said.
According to industry estimates, India’s innerwear market is valued at over ₹90,000 crore (about $10.9 billion) and is expected to grow at a 6-7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next decade.
Advantages and avenues
Tewari believes Modenik has structural advantages over many digital-first rivals. Unlike online-first brands that typically outsource manufacturing, the company controls product development and manufacturing while leveraging decades-old relationships with distributors, department stores, exclusive brand outlets and multi-brand retailers.
“Those capabilities have been built over decades. They cannot be replicated overnight,” he said.
The company is also expanding across channels. Enamor is available through 6,000-7,000 multi-brand outlets, nearly 80 exclusive stores, department stores, including Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Central and Pantaloons, besides online marketplaces and quick commerce platforms. E-commerce contributes over 30% of Enamor’s revenue.
Although digital commerce is growing rapidly, Tewari believes physical retail will continue to play a critical role in the category.
“Innerwear is a category that requires understanding of fit, size and functionality. Consumers still want to touch, feel and try products before making the switch from unbranded to branded,” he said.
Rather than pursuing acquisitions, the company plans to unlock growth from its existing portfolio.
The strategy comes as competition in India’s innerwear market is intensifying. Page Industries dominates through Jockey, while Reliance Retail, which houses brands such as Clovia, Marks & Spencer and Hunkemöller, acquired digital-first lingerie platform Zivame, and added premium lingerie brand amanté. Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail has expanded Van Heusen Innerwear, while Trent has strengthened its innerwear offering through its private label brands at Westside and Zudio. New-age brands such as Shyaway, Bummer and Nykd by Nykaa have also stepped up investments in their products.
(Published in MINT)
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June 8, 2026
Arushi Jain, The Times of India
8 June 2026
Their faces have launched many campaigns and brought crores to the film industry. But can they sell a moisturiser as successfully? India’s beauty market is the hottest growth story globally, estimated to reach $40 billion from $23 billion (2026) and eyeing the fourth-largest spot by 2030 (currently at number seven).
Last month, Estée Lauder announced the buyout of Forest Essentials, one of India’s oldest, Ayurveda-based brands. In 2025, Hindustan Unilever acquired five-year-old skin and hair care brand, Minimalist. A 2025 McKinsey & Company x Business of Fashion survey found that 78% of global beauty executives see India as the most promising growth market. Even celebrities have shown up with chequebooks, but fans are no longer buying at face value.
While Hailey Bieber’s Rhode built a cult following through what she calls an “outside of the box” strategy, Deepika Padukone’s 82°E reported a 30% revenue dip in FY25. Nykaa is in talks to acquire a stake in the brand.
India’s consumer has evolved faster than the brands serving them. They are reading labels now, not just recognising famous faces on packaging. Star power, it turns out, only gets you so far.
Fame gets you in the door. Formulation keeps you there
If a celebrity is the invitation to the party, formulation is what keeps the guest at the after-party. Despite India’s celebrity beauty segment crossing an estimated `5,000 crore in GMV in FY24, scale has not translated into customer retention. The initial spike, familiar to anyone who has tracked a celebrity launch, gives way to an uncomfortable question: what brings a customer back?
“Celebrity isn’t necessarily a sustainable brand asset,” says Devangshu Dutta, CEO of retail consultancy Third Eyesight. “While celebrities can act as interest-creators and trial-generators, repeat purchases are built on functional reasons, not imagery alone.”
Founders echo the same reality from the ground. “Honestly, people come back for what works,” says Aashka Goradia Goble, co-founder of RENÉE Cosmetics. “If a product performs well, feels easy to use, is priced right, and becomes part of someone’s everyday routine, they’ll keep reaching for it.”
Price, too, remains a decisive filter. Sunny Leone, founder of StarStruck, says, “In India, price is the main component.” The journey from first purchase to loyalty is driven by habit, and habit, in beauty, is built on results.
Positioning over popularity
The gap between a viral campaign and a repeat purchase is wider than most A-listers realise. Brand guru Harish Bijoor locates the problem in what he calls the “spinal cord” of a brand: a single, clear positioning that holds the entire business together.
Rihanna’s Fenty is inseparable from its commitment to shade inclusivity. Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics was built around one obsession: lips. “It is extremely important to understand what you want to be and focus on just one thing and not on everything,” Bijoor says. That clarity is precisely where most Indian celebrity beauty brands are still finding their footing.
The old playbook: launch a brand online, wrap it in the language of “clean” or “natural,” and wait for a global conglomerate to come calling has run its course. Today, strategic buyers and consumers alike want a brand that can stand on its own. The question is no longer whether a celebrity can generate awareness. It is whether the brand they have built can survive them.
What the labels that last have in common
The brands breaking through are doing so quietly and methodically. In a category where fame can spark interest but not always guarantee repeat purchase, Katrina Kaif’s Kay Beauty, launched with Nykaa in 2019, has emerged as one of celebrity beauty’s more consistent success stories.
The main reason is less about star power and more about strategy. “If you contrast Kay Beauty and 82°E (Deepika Padukone’s brand), Kay Beauty has two distinct advantages,” says Dutta. “Firstly, being priced for a much larger audience, and secondly, having the active participation of Nykaa across channels in terms of merchandising and visibility push for the brand.”
Nykaa is candid about what made the difference. “When we co-created Kay Beauty with Katrina, shade ranges and formulations designed for Indian skin tones and climate were severely limited,” a spokesperson shares, adding that the celebrity association “amplified the brand rather than substituted for it.” The strategy appears to have paid off: Kay Beauty is now a ₹500 crore-plus annualised GMV brand, with new launches contributing 21% of revenue as of Q3 FY26.
Why Indian skin demands more than a famous name
For Indian celebrity brands, the challenge is not just performance; it is perception. “Domestically, we see the mentality for buyers is to look at international brands first based on trust, and then try domestic brands based on lower price value,” says Leone.
Indian consumers are also highly specific in what they expect. According to market research firm Mintel, shoppers are increasingly drawn to formulations that are clinically tested and grounded in both science and local familiarity. Products must perform in Mumbai’s humidity and Delhi’s pollution and suit the full spectrum of Indian skin tones.
“Indian consumers love products that do more than one job, last long in our weather, and actually match Indian skin tones,” says Goradia. They are cautious spenders, she adds, but willing to invest when they see real quality and innovation.
Nykaa says this ingredient awareness is now visible across the country, not just metros. “Consumers are reading about niacinamide and retinol, they know what they want from a sunscreen, and are making considered purchase decisions. Brands need to earn their place on merit in every market,” says the spokesperson.
“A brand that addresses these needs well and remains within the customer’s budget succeeds,” says Dutta.
Gen Z will drive 50% of India’s beauty consumption by 2030
By 2030, Gen Z will drive 50% of India’s beauty and personal care consumption, a third of all sales will happen online, and per capita income is forecast to rise 138% in real terms by 2040, according to Euromonitor. Nykaa founder and CEO Falguni Nayar told Bloomberg that comparing India’s beauty routines to South Korea’s famed 14-step regimens is premature, “It is still day zero for beauty consumption in India.”
The global conglomerates have done the math. Estée Lauder, L’Oréal, and Puig are all moving deeper into India, betting on a consumer who is younger, more digitally fluent, and more ingredient-literate than any previous generation. The brands they are acquiring, Forest Essentials, Minimalist, Kama Ayurveda, share a common thread: They are built on something that exists independently of a famous face. “This is an industry that is very crowded and takes a lot of time to grow,” says Leone. “Western brands focus on global distribution and profit and loss. Not just turnover at a loss.” The celebrities who will build something lasting are the ones who understand that the launch is the easiest part. As Bijoor puts it: “Celebrity beauty is not skin deep at all. It is a deep brand science.”
(Published in The Times of India)
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February 16, 2026
Christina Moniz, Financial Express (Brand Wagon)
16 February 2026
Starting this month global sportswear maker Nike shifted its e-commerce operations to beauty and fashion marketplace Nykaa to address poor logistics, high delivery times and inventory niggles. With Nykaa in charge, the brand said, customers can expect free shipping on all orders and faster deliveries rang ing from twotofour days depending on the location.
The change comes at a time when Nike is struggling to cope with declining market share and operational and supply-side issues in India. Its physical store count in the country has dropped by half in the past ten years to 100 from over 200 a decade ago. Nike in India undertook major restructuring of its business between 2016 and 2019, closing 35% of its stores in those three years to take a more digital-first approach.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. The brand reported a 14% growth in sales in the fiscal ending March 2025 to clock ₹1,380 crore. But it is well behind competing brands such as Puma (₹3,274 crore) and Adidas (₹3,114 crore), both of which have over 400 stores across the country.
Given India’s size, the competitive landscape and potential, treating it as a secondary export market to be serviced from Singapore was a poor decision on Nike’s part, says Devangshu Dutta, founder and CEO, Third Eyesight.
Nike’s alignment with a local player offers important strategic lessons for global brands with big ambitions in India, especially those in the ₹8,800 crore sportswear market. Brands that have not treated India as an afterthought have succeeded in creating sustained growth and market leadership, says Dutta.
“Most of Nike’s global competitors have treated India as a market high consequence. Nike might be the leader by global revenues, in India is smaller than its global rivals like Adidas, Puma and Skechers. ASICS has a smaller base but is growing at 30% while Lotto is also looking to grow its footprint massively, observes Dutta.
Ever since Nike’s digital-first pivot, its customers in the country have raised several complaints citing delivery failures and poor service, with some deliveries reportedly taking weeks. Its decision to transfer its digital operations to Nykaa in India could potentially address these missteps and reverse the breakdown of customer experience, say experts.
Changing course
“The recent move feels like Nike acknowledging that India cannot be treated as an extension of a global system. It needs local infrastructure, local partners, and a model built specifically for how Indians shop online. Partnering with Nykaa brings local execution muscle that is hard to replicate quickly,” observes Tusharr Kumar, CEO, Only Much Louder, adding that the move is a maturity moment for global brands. “Scale alone doesn’t guarantee success. What matters is adapting to local consumer behaviour, logistical realities and service expectations,” says Kumar.
That said, Nike’s shift won’t be without challenges. The biggest one will be balancing scale with brand control, notes Yasin Hamidani, director, Media Care Brand Solutions. “While Nykaa offers strong reach and trust, Nike will need to ensure its premium positioning, product storytelling, and customer experience don’t get diluted. If managed well, this move doesn’t necessarily hurt Nike’s brand,” he states.
However, he adds that competition like Adidas and Puma, with stronger on-ground retail and omnichannel presence, may gain an edge if Nike’s visibility or momentum slows. “The partnership with Nykaa must feel strategic and not like a retreat,” he cautions.
Given that Nykaa is also a marketplace for other activewear brands, it remains to be seen how the platform maintains Nike’s premium customer experience. “On its own platform, Nike could control everything from storytelling to checkout flows and post-purchase engagement. Nike will now need to adjust to sharing customer data, promotional calendars, and operational priorities with a partner platform,” says Somdutta Singh, founder & CEO at Assiduus Global, adding that striking the right balance between leveraging Nykaa’s scale and maintaining Nike’s distinctiveness will be key.
(Published in Financial Express – Brandwagon)
