Croma eyes Rs 250 cr sales from private labels in FY13

Riding high on the growing demand for its private labels, Tata Sons-promoted Infiniti Retail, that operates a chain of multi-brand electronics stores under Croma, is eyeing revenues of Rs 250 crore from its own brands and expects to break-even in the current fiscal.

"We treat our private labels as brands and we sell what our customers want. We are expecting revenues of Rs 250 crore from our private labels in this fiscal," Infiniti Retail Managing Director and CEO Ajit Joshi told PTI here.

The Tata Group company clocked revenues of Rs 80 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 130 crore in FY12 from its private labels.

"We are very strict with our private labels, if the product does not deliver, we will throw it off the shelves. But, we have observed that our private labels are well accepted in the market," Joshi said.

Under the Croma brand, the company sells refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing machines, fans, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, among others.

"Our air-conditioners, including split and window, have registered a penetration of nearly, 44-50 per cent. Similarly, the penetration of Croma vacuum cleaners and microwaves is 61 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. This has given us confidence to go into larger appliances," he said, adding, the company is also planning to launch front-loading washing machines.

Joshi said Infiniti Retail is expected to break-even in this fiscal year. "We started this company in 2006. We expect to break even in this fiscal itself," he said. The company had a revenue of Rs 1,970 crore in FY12.

Meanwhile, the company has entered into the e-commerce space by launching a portal 'cromaretail.Com', which will enable it to reach 319 cities.

"With the higher penetration of Internet connectivity, online sales are catching up in a big way. The e-commerce portal will help us reach deeper into cities where we do not have presence so far," he said.

Joshi said Infiniti Retail is expanding its store network. "We plan to open another 14 stores by September to take the total count to 86," he said.