Warc, 9 August 2013
NEW DELHI: Retailers hoping to expand their presence in
India are benefitting from new opportunities as the nation's number of shopping
malls increases rapidly, a report has argued.
Asipac Consulting revealed in a study that there were 570
malls up and running in India as of May 2013, compared with just 225 five years
ago, the Times of India reported.
Within the overall figures, the seven leading metropolitan
cities in India, a group including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, have 190
shopping centres in total, with 60 such sites opening in the last year alone.
The 15 largest malls have also ballooned in size by 40% over
the course of three years. The biggest is the Phoenix Marketcity in Mumbai,
with a "lettable area" of 1.2m square feet and a daily footfall of
65,789 visitors.
Elsewhere, the Lulu Centre in Kochi, the Ambience mall in
Gurgaon and R City in Mumbai all have over 1m square feet of space for
retailers.
In terms of traffic, the Great India Palace in the New Okhla
Industrial Development Area received a reported 90,803 customers a day, the highest
figure on this metric.
With India's government having relaxed restrictions on
foreign direct investment in single-brand retail, firms like IKEA, Brooks
Brothers, Decathlon and Massimo Dutti are actively considering their options in
India.
Richemont, the luxury group, has also been in discussions
with Anand Sharma, India's commerce and industry minister, about establishing a
100%-owned retail network.
"We have expressed our intention and received a very
positive response from the minister," Anne Guimond, group head of tax at
Richemont, told the Economic Times.
But accommodating new players can require flexibility on the
part of existing tenants. Select Citywalk thus worked with Levi and Next London
to reduce store sizes in Delhi and clear space for players like Apple and
Superdry.
"This helps everyone become more efficient and
creative, and the mall gets more space to bring in new brands," said Arjun
Sharma, director of Select Citywalk.
Selectivity will remain important for retailers, too. Asipac
estimated that 40% of malls are performing well at present, registering growth
of around 12% in the most recent financial year.
Data sourced from Times of India/Economic Times; additional
content by Warc staff
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