Videocon to treble retail store count by next year

Diversified Videocon Group plans to treble its multi-brand electronic retail chain Digiworld stores to nearly 1,200 by next year.

The Group, which is into oil & gas, telecom and DTH service, apart from manufacturing and retailing of consumer electronics, operates 400 Digiworld stores and plans to add at least 100 outlets by the end of this calendar year.

"We are planning to open another 100-150 Digiworld stores by December. Next year, however, we will be much more aggressive and open 500-600 stores to take our footprint to nearly 1,200 outlets," Videocon Industries Director Anirudh Dhoot said.

"Further, we want to increase it by 300-400 stores a year and make it a household name," he said.

The firm normally invests about Rs 1 crore for a store and works on the model of 50% franchise and 50% own.

"Our target is to take our consumer durables business to Rs 10,000 crore this year and want a quarter of that coming from our Digiworld and Next stores," Dhoot said.

The company aims to strengthen its position against Korean rivals like LG and Samsung and will invest over Rs 50-75 crore on R&D. "We will be investing about Rs 50-75 crore on new products. Last year, we spent Rs 50 crore," he said.

Videocon also plans to up manufacturing, especially of refrigerators. "Every year we have a capex of Rs 50-100 crore. Capacity will rise by half a million more on the refrigerator side. We now rollout 30 lakh refrigerators," Dhoot said.

About 70% of Videocon products are manufactured in the country. The firm is in the process of setting up a new mobile handset plant involving an investment of up Rs 75 crore.

The company, which is looking to sell around 2.5 million mobile handsets next year, is scouting for a suitable location for the new plant, and is keen on Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Dhoot added.