Hosiery firm sees value in ‘athleisure’ biz

Having recently tied up with Pepe Jeans, the company plans on beefing up both its innerwear and athleisure-wear portfolio in the coming days.  Binay Kumar Gupta, the MD and Promoter of the company tells us, “In India, we produce 6 lakh units every day. Of which 65 per cent is made in Tirupur, which is 3.8 lakh pieces per day. We have an end to end manufacturing vertical here – from fibre to fashion – spinning, knitting, processing and garmenting. We are one of the few innerwear brands in India to have a complete backward integration. Based on feasibility, we earmarked Rs 100 mn for the spinning operations, Rs 70 mn for processing, and Rs 50 mn for knitting in Tirupur this fiscal.” 

The company’s long-term vision is to emerge as a complete brand – and distribution company with multiple categories of fashion wear – from inner wear to garments. 

When asked about the Pepe Jeans tie-up, Gupta says, “It has been a great learning experience for us, with respect to the manner how it pre plans everything, something that we were lacking in. We started our work a year ago, and this month the new innovative innerwear product will be displayed in Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad in another 2 weeks. We are expanding our product range in our existing brands.  Post Deepavali, there will be an expansion of our portfolio vis-a-vis the athleisure segment with the Force Next and Big Boss range (track pants, tees, polos among others). There is a huge shortage in the athleisure segment, and this is an opportunity for us.”

As far as India is concerned, the middle class is the biggest market. The upper segment is already conscious of international brands and it’s always a challenge to attract them to the brand. The company is looking at aggressive inorganic growth through M&A and through substantial expansion of EBO and SiS models in key cities pan India. “Before March next year, we plan on having 5 to 10 new kiosks and EBOs pan India. Dollar commands about 15 per cent of the market share when it comes to the innerwear segment. Sales contribution of South India is upwards of 10 per cent, as we started off quite late here. We plan to maintain a growth rate of 10 to 15 per cent year on year,” he signs off.