‘Zapak’ to open 600 gaming cafés in 200 cities

‘Zapak’ Digital Entertainment, an online gaming company and a part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group owned Reliance Entertainment Ltd, which recently launched a gaming portal, is planning to cash in on the gaming boom in the country. It has decided to set up a retail chain of more than 600 gaming cafes to be called  ‘Zapak Zones’, to reach out to 200 cities with a capacity of 100,000 kiosk seats in the next three years. These cafes will be based on a franchisee model. The first 10 Zapak zones in a test phase, according to media reports, will be launched in 10 major cities in the next three months. The company is targetting 10 million subscribers next year and 50 million subscribers within four years. The gaming cafes would provide the essential broadband access for its online offerings and help build Zapak communities.

Zapak has been named after a lot of research. It denotes speed, youth, fun and whacky stuff!

To finance these operations, Zapak will invest about Rs. 500 crore. This will not only cover setting up of the cafes but will also help enlarge the content portfolio, which will include uniquely Indian games, including mythological ones. Zapak wants to offer world class content. Zapak will also establish a development centre.

Reliance sees a great future for online gaming in India, which has more than 300,000 hardcore gamers. Internationally, gaming fetches more revenues than Hollywood and India too should be no exception in this regard. Reliance expects gaming in India to be also bigger than the Bollywood and anticipates the market to reach around Rs. 900 crore within a period of three years.

ITC to expand retail network; to open 54 new Chaupal Fresh outlets

ITC, the biggest tobacco products producer and the second biggest hotelier of the country, will expand its network of Chaupal Fresh outlets by opening 54 new outlets in the next three years. These outlets will be opened in certain metro and tier-I cities of the country. Presently, Chaupal Fresh has few Chaupal Fresh outlets operating in the cities of Pune and Hyderabad. Chaupal Fresh outlets, which offer fruits and vegetables, cater to the needs retail and bulk consumers.

Apart from establishing linkages with farm producers, ITC has also set up a complete cold chain, to ensure availibility of fresh farm products to consumers. While the cold chain will help reduce or eliminate spoilage and wastage of farm produce, direct linkage with farmers will help reduce a number of intermediary trading layers resulting better prices for both the producers and consumers.

ITC is also operating a chain of 11 Chaupal Sagar hypermarkets, which are located in semi urban centres. ITC has planned to expand this chain by taking the tally of such hypermarkets to 20. As per plans, every Chaupal Sagar outlet will be backed up by a network of about 40 e-chaupal kiosks, each of which in turn will be connected to a number of surrounding villages. Presently, there are 6,500 e-chaupal kiosks in operation in nine states, which are serving the needs of around 38,000 villages.

This was revealed by ITC Chairman Y.C. Deveshwar, while speaking to media perasons on the sidelines of the “Sustainability Summit: Asia 2006″ organised by CII in New Delhi on Tuesday, the 19th December, 2006.

Harsh Bahadur leaves Metro; Heading for Reliance?

Harsh Bahadur, Managing Director, Metro Cash & Carry India, according to a company statement, has resigned citing personal reasons. Bahadur, before taking up any new assignment, in March, 2007, will continue to serve the board till end February, 2007.

Although, Bahadur is said to be evaluating various options, speculation was rife a few days ago in the business media about he having been roped in to head the cash & carry format of retail business operations of Reliance Retail.

Bahadur, a retail industry veteran, had moved from RPG group’s retail business, six years ago, to set up Metro Cash & Carry’s retail business operations in India. Bahadur, a pioneer in the field, is credited with bringing about a revolution in the cash & carry business in India.

Metro C&C is the Indian arm of German retail major Metro AG, which adopted the cash and carry retail route to enter India. Wal-Mart has decided to follow the same entry strategy in India.

METRO C&C, it may be recalled, had started its operations in India from Bangalore in October 2003. Presently, Metro has two distribution Centres in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad. Bangalore centres, set up with an estimated investment of Rs. 200 crore, stock more than 18,000 food and non-food items and occupy more than 220,000 Square Feet of retail space, 40,000 Square Feet of which has been temperature controlled.
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