Flipkart deepens fashion market push with in-house brand

By Jessica Kuruthukulangara

(Reuters) - Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart on Thursday launched a private label kids' fashion and toy brand as it aims to bolster its leadership in the domestic online apparel market.

Flipkart, which is competing with Amazon.com Inc for market share in India's booming online shopping industry, gained online fashion market dominance with the 2014 acquisition of Myntra, which subsequently bought rival Jabong.

"Flipkart isn't launching private brands to drive profitability of its platform, but rather to provide more selection and better quality products for customers," Rishi Vasudev, head of Flipkart Fashion, told Reuters.

Myntra has its own portfolio of private label brands and forecast in August that these brands would post double-digit operating profit margin within 18-24 months.

Miss & Chief, Flipkart's fourth private-label clothing brand, will include apparel, footwear and educational toys for children.

Walmart Inc, which is reportedly in talks to buy a majority stake in Flipkart, also owns a portfolio of private-label apparel brands and had announced the launch of four more in-house brands in February, as part of a push to make deeper inroads into the apparel space.

The world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer is in talks to buy over 40 percent of Flipkart in potentially one of its biggest overseas deals, Reuters reported in February.

(Reporting by Jessica Kuruthukulangara in Bengaluru; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)