Videocon in talks with UK firm

Consumer durables major Videocon Industries is in talks with a major UK-based durables retailer for back-end support services for Next, its retail chain.

Venugopal Dhoot, chairman, Videocon Industries, confirmed that talks were on but refused to name the company.

He added that the tie-up would be on lines similar to the tie-up between Inifinti Retail, the Tata group's retail arm, and Woolworths of Australia for sourcing expertise and supply chain and back-end management.

Industry sources say the tie-up could take place with UK-based retailer Next, with whom Videocon's chain shares its name.

With close to 300 retail outlets, Videocon Industries has been recently scaling up its retail initiatives by buying out shops from the textile retailer Raymond group's, Plug In chain and so on. Company executives told Business Standard they were targetting 1,000 durable retail outlets under the Next brand by the end of the year, from 300-odd at present.

Apart from the brands for which the Videocon group has contract manufacturing arrangements (Akai, Sansui and Toshiba, Korean consumer durables brand Hyundai and European brand Kenstar), the Next chain retails competing brands such as LG, Samsung and Philips.

Consumer durable retailing has recently seen the entry of major players like the Tata group, Reliance Retail and the Future group.