Molton Brown plans to enter India's hospitality sector next fiscal

British luxury beauty and fragrance brand Molton Brown plans to foray into India's hospitality sector in the next fiscal and get into omni-channel retail here.

The company, which plans to open 15 stores across India over the next five years, at present has one store in India. It entered India in June this year.

"We plan to get into hotel business in India by the next financial year. We are already in talks with a few players. We expect hotel business to account for 20 per cent of our business in five years," Mark Hermann, global vice president of sales at Molton Brown told PTI.

Molton Brown also plans to start it's own e-commerce website in the next 12 months, he said.

Globally, hotel segment accounts for 24 per cent of the company's business.

In a market like the US, where it has only three stores, the hotel segment accounts for 50 per cent of its total business.

"India is our most recent market and we are focusing on expanding here ... priority market for expansion for Molton Brown is Asia and Europe," Molton Brown Global President Mark Johnson said.

When asked if the company is late in entering India's booming retail sector, Hermann said: "We think timing is perfect to enter India..while money was there..there were no luxury malls and retail channels..Now, luxury retail channels are coming up in big way".

The company in India has partnered with Gaganmeet Singh's Berkeley Beauty. Singh also manages brands like Bang & Olufsen, Creed Perfumes, Berluti and Tod's in India.

Molton Brown, headquartered in the United Kingdom, is a privately held company and has presence in 60 countries across the world.