Italian luxury brands gear up for big push in India

Fondazione Altagamma, a body of luxury brands of Italy, today said many of the country's top companies will be giving a big push to strengthen presence in India and will soon be announcing their investments.

"In the next few months a number of Italian brands will announce their investments for expanding and strengthening presence in India," Fondazione Altagamma, Executive Director Armando Branchini told reporters here on the sidelines of CII Luxury Goods Forum.

He said Fondazione Altagamma, which has 70 members, expect the total number of single brand stores of Italian firms in India to touch 200 by 2020 from 30 at present.
     
The 30 single brand stores of Italian brands that are already present in India is too less as compared to China, which has about 400 stores, he said.
     
"But in the next ten years, by 2020, about 200 stores are likely to come up in India by existing as well as new Italian brands," Branchini added.
     
While he did not provide the specifics about the size of likely investments by the Italian luxury brands, Branchini said expansion in India has been slow due to policies and also lack of appropriate retail space.
    
"The pace of growth in India has been very slow as compared to China because of several  factors like FDI restrictions, heavy custom duties (that drives customers to shop abroad) and limited of appropriate commercial space for selling luxury brands," he said.
    
Italian brands started coming to India around 2000, it has been almost a decade but the pace growth has been very slow, Branchini added.
     
Yet, things are slowly changing and environment is gradually favouring expansion of luxury brands.
     
"A host of attractive retail spaces coming up, such as UB City in Bangalore, DLF Emporio in Delhi and Mumbai's Galleria, which offer the right ambience that is attracting lot of brands to set up shops in India," he said.
    
On the recent government to east FDI policy in retail and move to start discussion on opening foreign investment in multi brand retailing, he said removal of restrictions will encourage Italian brands to be "more positive about India and set up more stores and invest more".
    
Currently, the government allows only 51 per cent FDI in single brand retailing while none in multi-brand segment.
    
Fondazione Altagamma members include Bvlgari, Fendi, Ferrari Gucci, Max Mara, Valentino, Venini and Versace among others.