Portugal's Sonae bets on India for sporting retail growth

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's largest retailer Sonae hopes to make India a key growth driver for its Sport Zone outlets, adding a fast-growing emerging economy to mature markets in Europe, a board member said on Monday.

Last week, Sonae opened its first Sport Zone outside Portugal and Spain in India, in partnership with Trent, a subsidiary of the Tata Group. Sonae also operates Continente hypermarkets and Worten consumer electronics stores as well as other brands.

"After a period of learning and adapting to the format and offer in that market, India has the potential to rapidly become one of the most important platforms of Sport Zone's accelerated growth," Paulo Simoes told Reuters.

At the end of 2014, Sport Zone had 110 stores, making up 17 percent of Sonae's non-food specialised retail business and 4 percent of total sales. Sales in the segment rose nearly 7 percent last year to 1.29 billion euros.

"This expansion allows us to reinforce our mix between mature economies and markets with strong dynamics," he added.

Sonae's agreement with Trent envisages the opening of six stores in India by the end of 2016.

"Depending on the results (from these stores), we will jointly evaluate the next steps", he said, adding that he expected India's projected growth of over 6 percent a year through 2017 to have a positive impact on consumption.

He said the "capital-light" model chosen for India means Sonae will share trading margin with its partner while using some of Trent's outlets as well as its local market expertise.

(Reporting by Daniel Alvarenga; Writing by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Kevin Liffey)