India's Reliance Industries Ltd is looking to buy fashion and child-focused retailers abroad and partner with global sports and beauty brands as part of its expansion into consumer markets, a top executive told Reuters.
Reliance Industries owned by Asia’s richest man is pivoting from an oil-led combination into a consumer facing company. Reliance has joined hand with 40 foreign partners and in association with them already runs high-end stores in India.It bought Hamleys, the world’s oldest toy retailer in May, which was the first international acquisition.
"The Hamleys acquisition has already whetted our appetite," Reliance Brands CEO Darshan Mehta said in an interview in India's financial capital Mumbai.
Reuters reported that Reliance is already India's biggest brick-and-mortar retailer in terms of revenue and number of stores. And Ambani, whom Forbes says is the world's 13th richest man, is also scaling up his grocery and wholesale businesses.
The brand's products are available at 788 across exclusive outlets, malls and airports. It is in plan of venturing 120 stores by the year 2020.
It is also looking forward to partner with brands in two segments where it has not placed its footprints yet.The company's interest as of now lies in sports, wellness, and fitness along with men and women beauty products.
ET reports, Reliance Brands targets around 50 million well off Indians - still remains a small part of the Reliance conglomerate, which made a net profit of $5.5 billion on $87 billion of revenue in the year ended March 2019.
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