ASICS prepares to comply with FDI norms to launch single brand retail

Sportswear brand ASICS is slowly increasing the share of its products manufactured in India to comply with foreign direct investment norms for single brand retail and open its own stores in the country.

"After meeting 30 per cent sourcing norms for FDI in single brand retail, we can go for bigger stores. We will apply for FDI in single brand retail. With our own stores, we will have a better brand governance.

"The moment we will reach 30 per cent of sourcing/ manufacturing from India, we will have our own stores...we will look at operating a mix of both partner stores and as well as our own retail stores," ASICS India MD Rajat Khurana told PTI.

At present, ASICS India sources about 10-12 per cent of its total products sold from India.

"We started local production of apparel in 2017. Later, we started footwear as well, but only entry point products. It will take time to manufacture high performance products in India... gradually we are scaling it up," he added.

The company, which sells its footwear and apparel products through franchise model, plans to open 13-14 more stores in the current year.

At present, ASICS India gets about 75 per cent of its sales from mono brand stores, multi brand retail outlets and distributer driven business channels.

Khurana said the company is looking at tripling revenue to over Rs 200 crore in the next two-three years. For the year ending March 2017, it reported a turnover of Rs 73 crore. ASICS India, which is a step down subsidiary of ASICS Japan, at present has 27 mono brand stores in India.