H&M eyes offline, online growth in Indian market

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Feb 21, 2018

Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) is looking to online and offline growth in the Indian market as it plans to expand its physical network by adding stores in the coming months followed by the launch of its online portal in the country.
 

H&M has been performing exceedingly well in India’s fashion market, doubling its revenue to Rs 955 crore (approx $147.5 million) for the fiscal year 2017, compared to the Rs 490 (approx $75.6 million) it posted in the financial year 2016.
 
After bullish expansion in its first two years the company is now looking to slow down and is expected to add stores in the tiers 2 and 3 markets. The company sees growth potential in these cities and will be opening its next store in Mysuru.

Apart from expansion of its physical network, H&M will foray into the lucrative online market later this year through its own portal as it sees good potential and plans to get a logistics partner on board to help the firm with the deliveries across the country.
 
The company has also ruled out any partnerships with online firms in the country and decided to go on its own by selling exclusively through its e-commerce portal.
 
"We plan to launch our online store this year. Deliveries would be undertaken by a third-party logistics partner, he said. As of now we will not be integrating our physical stores with online operations, but we will evaluate the business as it goes along," H&M India country manager Janne Einola was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
 
"Currently, we have 29 stores, including the two new ones in Mumbai, and we will add one more in Mysore. We have been adding one store a month since we began operations a little over two years ago," Einola added.