Knitwear firm Rupa & Company Ltd. will focus on export markets and online sales in the coming years, a top company official said.
“We see huge opportunity in exports and online sales which are negligible now,” said Vikas Agarwal, president and brand director, Rupa & Company.
“We will be focusing on these two segments in the next three years apart from penetrating deep into the domestic market with our brands and new range of products,” Mr. Agarwal said.
“Currently, exports contribute to 2% of our revenue and this can easily go up to 8% in three years. We are working on this. Similarly, our online sales account for only 2 to 3% of the revenue and this has vast potential for growth,” he said.
Currently, the company exports products to Africa and Middle East and is now preparing to enter new export markets in South East Asia, more specifically Malaysia and Singapore.
Similarly, more emphasis is being given to online sales as bulk of the customers in urban areas have moved to online shopping, Mr. Agarwal said.
He said revenue from these two streams will help the company to accomplish its Vision 2020 under which it had targeted ₹2,000 crore in revenue by 2020.
For FY17, the firm reported a net profit of ₹77 crore on sales turnover of ₹1,084 crore.
GST impact
The company, which has more than half a dozen brands under its portfolio, expects that post GST bulk of the business from the unorganised sector will move to the organised sector and as a leading player, it would benefit substantially.
“Our economy brand Jon and mid premium brand Rupa Frontline are set to benefit substantially from the introduction of GST. All our other brands such as Microman, Microwoman, Euro and Softline are also finding greater traction,” he said.
We are growing all our brands. The ₹25,000-crore knitwear sector is heading for consolidation post GST and is expected to clock a revenue of ₹50,000 crore by 2023 and we are doing every thing to leverage on the opportunity,” Mr.Agarwal added.
He said the company was also in the process of enhancing the product range and getting into new categories to cater to a large base of customers.
