Being Human banks on boys-n-sports to ramp up revenues

Mandhana Industries, a leading vertically integrated textile and garment manufacturer with Salman Khan as brand ambassador for its Being Human apparel range, is making two significant additions to its offerings. While the first one is in the form of a boys line of clothing that will be an extension of Being Human brand, the second one is its foray into active sports wear category under sub-brand called Being Active.

Both the additions, the company management said, are likely to witness exponential growth and add significantly to its revenues in the coming years.

Manish Mandhana, managing director, Mandhana Industries Ltd and Being Human, said the company would be looking at anything between Rs 50-60 crore in revenues coming from the new additions in fiscal 2017.

"Am not being too ambitious, hence the numbers are very much on the conservative side. The new additions can very easily contribute at least 20% to the overall revenues," said Mandhana, adding that Being Human as a brand will close the fiscal 2016 growing 35% to 40% over last year's revenues of Rs 171 crore.

On the company's foray into the active sports wear category, Mandhana said, most of India's youth population today is involved in some or the other sports, fitness activity. "Such activities require a sports gear that's dry-fit and functional. While the big four players lead the market in the organised segment, there are very few domestic players in this space. Since our brand targets the youth and our brand ambassador is a fitness icon, we thought it to be a very good segment to be present in," he said.

The company start Being Active range with apparels and will later build up the other categories, said Mandhana.

As far as boys line is concerned, Mandhana is of the view that the category has very few organised players as the unorganised market is very huge. "But in branded space, there is still potential and scope to grow. The boys line under the Being Human umbrella will cater to kids in the age group of six to 14 years. The target group is not exactly small boys, but grown-ups kids who aspire to be like adults. Accordingly, we have picked up some of the designs from mens' line that also look good on kids and introduced them in the boys line. The response from channel partners including online partners has been very good and we will be making the boys line available in stores starting April this year." he said.

While the boys line will sell under the Being Human banner itself, the company has created a sub-brand called 'Being Active' for the sports wear range. The Being Active line of clothing will include running shorts, swimming shorts, vests and t-shirts (dry fit), jogging / track suits, workout wear etc. To start retailing in across 40-odd stores (out of the 51 outlets) by mid-April, the range will be priced starting from Rs 1,000 going up to Rs 4,000. The company will also forge tie-ups with operators of fitness and gymnasium chains across the country to install a kiosk inside their facilities to sell and build awareness about the products.

"The boys and active sports wear range will be retailed through Being Human stores across the country, however, we will also be launching the first kids apparel store to exclusively sell the boys line of clothing," said Mandhana, adding that the kids' apparel store will be launched inside the Viviana Mall at Thane, Mumbai.

While not sharing specific pricing details for the boys line of clothing, Mandhana said the company has studied the competitive offerings in the market and has priced its range either on par or a little lower than what is being offered at present. The company will spend about 5% of topline towards marketing the brands.

On the retail front, the company is looking to launch large format Being Human stores occupying retail space of over 2,000 square feet in the coming months. According to Mandhana, the plan is to add 25 new stores in the next fiscal i.e. 2017 wherein the set-up cost for each store will approximately be Rs 1 crore. The overall investment of Rs 25 crore in store additions will be financed through internal accruals.

Elaborating on the viability of store operations, the management is of the view, stores with monthly rentals of between Rs 80 and Rs 100 per square feet and sales per sq ft between Rs 1,500 to 2,000 is a good number to achieve profitability.

Commenting on the growth trends, Mandhana said, "While overall business growth is much higher, we have witnessed like-to-like growth of 4-5% in some of our stores. We have added a lot of premium products like shirts, denims and other categories apart from t-shirts. Introduction of high-priced categories has helped grow top line as well as bottom line."