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| Edited By: Shailaja Sharma |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 18, 2018, 02:03 AM IST
Tata Sons, the holding company of Tata Group, has invested Rs200 crore in Infiniti Retail, its wholly-owned subsidiary that runs the Croma chain of electronic stores, Ajit Joshi, chief executive officer, Infiniti Retail, told DNA.
“We have received Rs200 crore equity from Tata Sons. We have major expansion plans for Croma and want to increase our footprint across the country fast,” Joshi said.
His company is planning to open 30 to 50 stores in FY12.
Tata Sons has invested Rs280 crore in Infiniti Retail so far.
This infusion was made in two tranches of Rs220 crore and Rs60 crore.
Infiniti runs close to 60 Croma in two formats, the Megastore format, which is more than 12, 000 sq ft and the Zip format that is 3,000-5,000 sq ft in size.
The company has recently started experimenting an intermediate format, the Croma Premium Range, in select cities such as Bangalore and Delhi. Most of the new stores it will open next fiscal will be in the Zip format.
The company has five stores at Mumbai and Delhi airports cumulatively and is eyeing similar stores at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai airports.
“We are entering markets like Punjab and going deeper into markets such as Tamil Nadu. Cities such as Bhopal, Indore, Jaipur, Udaipur are also being evaluated. We have just started looking at Kolkata as a market too,” Joshi said.
In FY10, Croma recorded a turnover of Rs1,021 crore with 43 stores and is aiming for a 50% growth in FY11 at Rs1,530 crore with 60 stores, Joshi said, adding that the efforts are on to breakeven at a company level.
The company is looking at refurbishing some of the old stores to drive in footfalls. Croma has also tied up with an international gadget brand, which it will launch in stores next month. “It is a gadget in the entertainment area that we will launch next month,” Joshi said.
