MARKS & SPENCER OPENS ITS FIRST HIGH STREET STORE IN INDIA
-Retailer continues to expand its presence in India with 20th store-
Marks & Spencer today opened its first high street store in India at Connaught Place, New Delhi. The new store complements the retailer’s eight existing stores in shopping malls throughout the city.
The new 10,000 square feet store is in line with Marks & Spencer’s new international strategy to build a strong presence in India, as one of its priority international markets. To do this, Marks & Spencer will focus on key cities in India, such as Delhi, by opening a cluster of supporting stores around its flagship stores. Marks & Spencer now has 20 stores in India.
Speaking at the opening, Martin Jones, CEO, Marks & Spencer Reliance India commented: “We’re delighted to open our first high street store in India at PVR Plaza Building, Connaught Place. Delhi is a really exciting city for us to grow our business and the new high street format will complement our eight other stores here. Over the next 12 months we’ll continue to build our presence across India by opening nine further stores.”
The new Marks & Spencer store will showcase an extensive range of quality fashions and accessories across womenswear, menswear,lingerie and beauty. Popular Marks & Spencer fashion ranges will be available including:-
per una – Our feminine and confident womenswear range lays an emphasis on embellishment and quality fabrics.
Indigo Collection – A truly casual and confident range with a focus on lifestyle dressing using feminine colour palettes is an easy to wear approach for the Love Your Look Season.
Luke Banks, Head of Buying and Merchandising in India, says: “Our customers in India love stylish, great quality clothing and are always on the lookout for the season’s key trends. This summer we have a wide range of the latest catwalk fashions including linen shirts and dresses, Stormwear™ chinos and jeggings. We’ve also increased our local sourcing; now more than 50% of our products are sourced from South Asia and India, so we’re able to ensure our clothing not only looks great but is fantastic value too.”
-Ends-
Notes to Editors
Marks & Spencer Reliance India pvt Ltd is the joint venture formed in April 2008 between Marks & Spencer and Reliance Retail.
Marks & Spencer (M&S) is one of the UK’s leading retailers, offering high quality, great value clothing, as well as home products and outstanding quality food. M&S employs over 75,000 people and has 705 UK stores and 361 international stores in 42 territories.
Reliance Retail Limited (RRL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited opened its first retail store in November 2006 and today operates more than 1,000 stores in over 86 cities, spanning 14 states with over 4.2 million sq ft of trading space.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India’s largest private sector company on all major financial parameters with a turnover of Rs. 1, 46, 328 crore (US$ 28.85 billion), cash profit of Rs 22,365 crore (US$ 4.41 billion), net profit (excluding exceptional income) of Rs. 15,637 crore (US$ 3.02 billion) and net worth of Rs 126,373 crore (US$ 24.92 billion) as of March 31, 2009.
For further information, please contact:
Genesis Burson–Marsteller
Pavishia Nair- 989 998 2532/ Ankush Ahuja- 981 147 3664
E-mail: pavishia.nair@bm.com / ankush.ahuja@bm.com
