Mumbai: The Rs 10,000 crore Essar Group is getting into retail. It will launch stores to sell mobile phones by December or February. The buzz is that Richard Branson's Virgin Group will chip in with technical support and store design, reports CNBC-TV18.
Mobile Shop, the likely name for Essar Group's telecom retailing venture, is set to offer you mobile phones and accessories. Sources say the group will launch 300 to 600 square foot stores in the next two or four months.
It will start out with the top 10 cities and it hopes to have 2,500 stores up by 2008. Over the next five years Essar will invest about Rs 1,500 crore in the venture.
Sources say that Essar is tying up with Richard Branson's Virgin Group for technical support and store design. In markets like the US and Britain, Virgin runs a chain of stores called Virgin Megastores.
They sell music, electronic products and Virgin mobile phones. Interestingly, for real estate, Essar is believed to be talking with mom-and-pop businesses like Apparel Boutiques, to sell or lease out space.
When contacted, an Essar Group spokesperson said, “As a group, we have been exploring opportunities and telecom is one such opportunity being looked at. It is too premature comment on the same."
Studies suggest that India is emerging as the second largest market for mobile handsets. It will reach Rs 30,000 crore next year. Retailers like Pantaloon and service providers like Spice Telecom plan to sell handsets too. And if Essar wants to corner 10 per cent of the market, it's going to have to dial up a strategy that works.
Comments
0 comment