We all know that Pantaloon Retail is the largest organized retailer in India, with a retail space of more than 14msf under its belt. It has presence in multiple categories through different formats like department stores (Pantaloon), hypermarkets (Big Bazaar), seamless mall (Central) and standalone stores.
In Q1-2011, Future Group added 0.68msf takes total area under operations to 14.8msf. The addition was spread across formats – 2 Pantaloons, 1 Central, 5 Big Bazaar, 3 Food Bazaar and 37 KB’s Fair Price stores. In keeping with its limited expansion strategy in the Electronics vertical, only 1 electronics store was added during the quarter. Of its 5 new Big Bazaar stores, 1 store each was opened in Hassan and Gangtok for the first time.
The company has opened its 100th KB’s Fair Price shop in Delhi and plans to open its 100th in Mumbai in June. We expect store openings to get skewed more and more towards tier-II and tier-III cities to gain first mover advantage.
To compete emerging players with deep pockets like Hypercity, More, Bharti and Star India Bazaar have aggressive store opening plans over the next 2-3 years. The management has maintained its guidance of adding an area of 2-3msf every year.