Retailers remain strong on expansion footing

See strong top-line growth in Q4 due to the sales impact in base qtr

- SHARLEEN D'SOUZA

Retailers saw strong top-line growth during the January sales impact in the base quarter because of Omicron, coupled with strong store openings.

However, on the expansion front, brokerages have noted that some will continue to aggressively expand, while others may bring down the pace.

HDFC Institutional Research said in its report that Shoppers Stop scale recovery and aggressive focus on store expansion and assortment management are certainly encouraging.

Motilal Oswal said that Bata India's footprint addition guidance continues to remain robust with plans to add another 150 stores annually.

However, Morgan Stanley said in its note on ABFRL that it has moderated its FY24 Pantaloo s store expansion target to 40-50 stores (60-70 in FY23) especially in smaller towns, given the weakness in the demand environment and the recent store openings (25 in Q4).

Motilal Oswal also noted that Titan is aggressively opening stores overseas as it has plans to add 25 more stores in FY24 with many stores in the GCC region. It currently has six stores. The brokerage also said that Titan also intends to double the number of Mia stores in FY24 and said that there is opportunity for 100 new Tanishq stores in the next two years. However, the company would be adding 30-40 stores per year for the next two years and would be expanding for a few retail stores.