Dolphin Mart to set up 19 stores in 2008-09

"We want to fill up the vacuum in luxury decorative items segment. Our target section is the growing middle class population with disposable income in India who has a taste for foreign sourced items," Dolphin Mart Chairman K V Rao told PTI.

As part of the company's expansion plans, it would set up 10 franchisee showrooms, besides launching six exclusive boutique and three megastores, to come up by the end of the 2008-09 fiscal year, he added.

Rao, however, refused to share the investment details of the company in its expansion programme.

Along with these stores, d'mart Exclusif would also introduce five new categories of home decoratives in classical decorations and transitional space category, Rao said.

"We have 14 franchisee stores in major cities, including the four metros. The 10 new franchisee showrooms will cover the cities Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Lucknow and Hyderabad where we do not have any presence now," he said.

Riding on the back of this expansion spree, the company is expecting its turnover from the d'mart Exclusif brand to grow by 125 per cent to touch Rs 50 crore mark in the current fiscal, he added.

The d'mart Exclusif brand has an extensive collection of ethnic silverware, handmade crystalware, fine porcelain figurines and marble art pieces among others. Its products are sourced from Italy, Germany and France.