After making a mark in the markets of Maharashtra and Gujarat, Tata’s Infiniti Retail, with its brand Croma, is all set to amuse south Indians. The brand, in next couple of months, will open over ten large-format stores, sized 10,000-17,000 square feet.
Total investments over Rs 75 crore are planned for the project, where-in Rs 2-2.5 crore will go for the inventory per store, while 1.5-2.5 will be spent on infrastructure.
Indiaretailing had earlier reported that the company will open around 100 stores, out of which 30 stores will be operational by March 2008. The report also said that the company will go to tier- II cities.
However, Ajit Joshi, CEO, Infiniti Retail, said, “To begin with, we will not open in smaller cities. First, we will establish ourselves in big cities and then move into smaller ones to have better logistics and management.’’
In South, Infiniti will open four stores in Bangalore and two each in Chennai and Hyderabad. The retailer will then move into smaller cities including Mysore in Karnataka and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.
The company is targeting more technology savvy consumer and plans to sell more laptops, LCD televisions, mobile handsets and music players. Over 6,000 products that the company sells in its stores in west India, will also be retailed in the South.
“The south has high literacy rates. Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai are ruling the world in IT. All these cities are well connected to the western world and have global exposure. So, we are hopeful of selling the full range of high-end products there. Secondly, the homes there are bigger so we can also sell bigger LCDs, refrigerators and washing machines,” said Joshi.
The south will also see over 600 people getting employment through Croma , as the company will hire 50-60 people per store.
