Former Puma India head Abhishek Ganguly eyes a long run with new company

Abhishek Ganguly is planning to scale up multiple sports apparel brands to multimillion-dollar levels through his venture Agilitas Sports

Former Puma India head Abhishek Ganguly, who grew the firm from being a ₹20 crore one to a ₹3,900 crore company during his 18-year tenure, is planning to scale up multiple sports apparel brands to multimillion-dollar levels through his venture Agilitas Sports.

 

Ganguly, who helped the German brand overtake Adidas in market leadership, is applying his growth strategies to build a portfolio of international as well as homegrown athletic brands in India’s expanding sports market.

 

In the near future, Agilitas is aiming to bring and build three international brands and a domestic one in the sportswear category. “We are building India’s largest sports company. We will be focused on sportswear – that’s the only business the team and I understand,” said Ganguly, cofounder and chief executive, Agilitas Sports. “All four brands will be built with a long-term view and at depth. The first two brands we feel have at least a ₹2,000 crore opportunity in the next seven years.”

 

One of the international brands Ganguly said he was scaling up in India is Italian sportswear label Lotto. It recently made a strategic foray into the country, spearheaded by Agilitas with a five-year plan to achieve ₹1,000 crore revenue. Agilitas holds exclusive rights for the Lotto brand in India, South Africa, and Australia.

 

Founded in Italy over 50 years ago, Lotto enters India with Leggenda, its premium sneaker line featuring designs from the 1970s to the 1990s, now manufactured at Agilitas-acquired Mochiko Shoes. Over the next year, Lotto will expand into sportswear, apparel, and accessories.

 

“We’re not just doing distribution – we’re creating the product, designing it, and building the R&D (research & development) structure,” said Ganguly. “We want to open 100 Lotto stores quickly because exclusive stores are important for building a brand.” 

But how does he avoid brand confusion while building sports brands simultaneously through Agilitas and ensure each has distinct market positioning? Ganguly’s strategy relies on product differentiation and distinct brand narratives rather than category separation, since all four brands operate in the same sportswear space.

 

“The offer will be different from each of the brands. When we launch Lotto football, we will not do that in any other of our three brands. When we launch the Lotto tennis shoe, we will not do that in any of our three brands. Consumer stories and brand positioning will be distinctly different.”

 

Sportswear market

 

India’s sportswear market is estimated at over $10 billion and projected to reach $16.6 billion by 2033, with robust double-digit growth expected. Ganguly is competing with players like Nike, Adidas, and Puma, especially given their big marketing budgets and brand recognition. Ganguly says India’s large, under-penetrated sportswear market offers room for multiple players to succeed, contrasting with his earlier Puma experience, when the market was smaller and resources were limited.

“The situation in India is different. The market is big and there are very few players. It’s a 15-18 per cent growth business in the next 8-10 years,” he noted.

 

But simultaneously scaling up multiple brands requires capital — a challenge Ganguly anticipated. He had secured funding upfront rather than pursuing piecemeal fundraising rounds. The firm raised ₹600 crore in the first year of it being set up. “We have capitalised ourselves well,” he noted. “We don’t need to raise ₹1,000 crore every year. We’re not creating brands at a price point where we are selling at low gross margins.”

 

Pricing & manufacturing

 

“We as a country need to get pride back in our manufacturing. We are better than and equal to some of the other far Eastern Asian peers. This is proudly made in India and I can dare say it is better than lots made in China and Vietnam.” Agilitas acquired Mochiko Shoes, one of India’s largest sports footwear manufacturers, for an undisclosed amount in 2023. Mochiko, established in 2008, had reported revenue of ₹642 crore in FY23.

 

Regarding pricing strategy, Ganguly said products on Agilitas were accessible brands. “We are offering them at price points where people think that there is extreme value for the prices they are paying, so that they keep coming back and buying our products,” he said.