Retail Superstar

Avenue Supermarts is the most efficient Indian grocery retailer, but sustaining the growth momentum would be a challenge.

- Ajita Shashidhar

Radhakrishna Damani is a die-hard fan of Walmart founder Sam Walton. Damani had made at least five trips to the US between 2000 and 2002 prior to setting up the first D-Mart store in Thane. Indeed, he made it a point to travel across the US to observe the day-to-day functioning of the Walmart stores. Walton’s winning formula of a 'low cost and low price' model has evidently worked for D-Mart too, making it not just the most efficiently run, profitable Indian retail business, but also the highest valued.

D-Mart listed earlier this year and has since been on a tear, growing almost four-fold over its issue price of ₹299 and its market capitalisation now is almost ₹69,000 crore. It has already entered the top 50 in the BT-500 (ranked 49). Just as Walmart followed a clustered expansion approach during its initial years, D-Mart too is present only in four out of the 29 Indian states (Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka). And, like Walmart, it also owns the real estate of over 85 per cent of its stores.