M&B to foray into women's footwear

Plans exclusive stores at Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Delhi.

Noida-based M&B Footwear Private Limited, a leading manufacturer of shoes having a portfolio of several national and international brands, is planning to enter the women's footwear and accessories and apparels segment by September this year.

"Following the overwhelming response to our in-house brand 'iD' range of men's footwear, we are planning to enter the niche women's footwear segment targeted at the 16-25 age group by the end of September 2007," Vikas Bagga, brand head for iD, told Business Standard.

Simultaneously, it also plans to introduce its own accessories range such as wallets, belts, socks, mobile covers and caps under the 'Spareparts' brand, which would be followed by the launch of apparels.

The company is also gearing up to ride the retail boom with plans to set up 100 'Walk-in M&B' stores and shop-in shops, its international footwear retail chain, across the country by 2008, at an estimated investment of Rs 45 crore.

"The proposed 100 Walk-in M&B stores would be a combination of both company-managed and franchisee-run," Bagga said. The company currently runs 21 Walk-in M&B stores in the country.

The first iD-dedicated store came up in Mumbai in November last year and now the company plans to open six more exclusive stores in the country including one each at Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Delhi, at an investment of around Rs 2.7 crore in the next four months.

M&B Footwear, which has licensing and distribution arrangements with international brands such as Lee Cooper, Provogue, Rider and Geox, has two manufacturing facilities in India -- at Noida and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) "� with a capacity of 5,000 pairs per day.

To fuel the ever-growing demand of the company's existing brands and to improve on the current supply levels to footwear giants like Bata and Reebok to whom the company also supplies footwear, it plans to increase its production capacity to 8,000 pairs per day.

"We are expecting our turnover to touch the Rs 100-crore mark in the current financial year, of which the iD brand is expected to account for Rs 50 crore. This is expected to be increased to 35 per cent during the next financial year," Bagga said.