Reliance enters North with 5 ‘Fresh’ stores in the pink city of Jaipur

After making a beginning in the South, Reliance ‘Fresh’ has now entered the North zone with the opening of five new stores in Jaipur effective 15th December, 2006.

All the new stores in Jaipur will work for 13 hours a day (8 AM to 9 PM), seven days a week. Each of these stores will occupy retail space of between 2,000 and 3,500 sq. ft.

Like sixteen of its sibling stores having already been launched, within a short span of six weeks, in the southern city of Hyderabad, the new Reliance ‘Fresh’ stores at Jaipur will offer a wide variety of fresh vegetables, fruits, flowers, dairy products and food items in a world class ambience.

Philips in a retail push; to tie up with Reliance and Tata

Philips India- a subsidiary of the Dutch consumer electronics giant Royal Phillips, has initiated discussions with major modern multi format retail players like Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Retail and Tata owned Trent for poosible tie-ups, to shore up volumes of various consumer electronic products being offered by the company in the country. Philips products are already available in Kishore Biyani owned Big Bazaars and e-zones.

Philips has also embarked on scaling up its own retail operations. It plans to increase the exclusively branded “Philips Arena” stores from current 45 to 100 stores, within a period of one year.

Philips has recently entered the flat panel TV display (FPD) segment with ‘Ambilight’ FPDs, which are priced between Rs 30,000 and Rs 2.5 lakh. By next year, Philips expects to sell 50,000 units of these FPDs with a projected turnover of around Rs 225 crore. Philips would spend about Rs 40 crore on brand promotion during 2007.

Bose to double retail presence in India; to open 12 stores in 18 months

Bose Corporation, the US based, $ 1,800 mn, acoustics major, which began its retail operations in India with two stores in 2003, is expanding its India operations by doubling the number of its existing exclusive brand stores from 12 to 24, within a period of 18 months.

Bose makes a variety of consumer and professional acoustic systems including its world renowned compact radio system “Wave.”

The existing 12 Bose stores are spread across the metro cities, however, it has decided to also explore some tier-II cities like Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Pune and Cochin for its expansion. This decision is based on the encouraging response that the company has received from its store in Ahmedabad.

Bose plans to make India, where it registered 60% annual growth, as its second largest market outside the US. Japan with 23 stores is the largest market for Bose outside the US. Bose has negligible presence in China with both of its stores having been located in Hong Kong.

Amar Bose, an Indian expat, before setting up his company in the US, in 1964, was a professor of electrical engineering at MIT.