Gtn Textiles Thrust On Fabrics Sale In The Us

GTN Textiles Ltd (GTN), a Rs 170-crore textile group with manufacturing and processing units at Hyderabad, Nagpur, Kochi and Palakkad is trying to make its presence felt in the American retail market with its one hundred per cent cotton fully mercerized fabrics, a segment that is the traditional stronghold of products from Korea, Macau and Thailand.

GTN, which has its garments unit here, has already started exporting 60,000 numbers of tee-shirts to the US retail major, Cutter & Buck, and another 20,000 to another retail major, A M Player. They are being marketed under the brand names of the two retailers, but with label that the product is origin of India.

Meanwhile, GTN has embarked on a plan to push its new brandname, Cotstyle, in the domestic arena. According to GTN's general manager, business development, V Krishnan, the company is leveraging its plant capacity to cut the process lead time and thus enable it to make available Cotstyle in a wider variety of choices, multiple design options and in more number of outlets across. It is also planning setting up a new fabric processing plant for mercerization at Vijayawada at a cost of Rs 16 crore. It will be operational by early next year.

Explaining the new marketing strategy, Krishnan said soon Cotstyle will be available in eight new designs per 1,000 shirts every ten days, fifteen designs per 4,000 knit shirts every month, in India.

"This makes Cotstyle the only brand in the country to offer to customers such a wide variety in design and colours in a shorter span," he said.

GTN is also widening the range of products for the domestic market under its new brand name. Currently, only shirts and tee shirts were being marketed. Next month, trousers under Cotstyle will be introduced followed by socks in June. Cotstyle is the first fibre specific brand, he said.