Bharti Retail is expanding its operations into western India, with the opening of a hypermarket in Mumbai planned for the first quarter of 2011.
An unnamed source told the Business Standard that the Indian retailer has signed off on a 5,600m2store in the Neptune Magnet mall in the Bhandup area of Mumbai.
The company also reportedly plans to develop an additional 20 stores in cities such as Mumbai, Pune and Nanded, and a distribution hub on the Mumbai-Pune highway.
Unlike retailers such as Reliance Retail, which set up stores across the country in one go, Bharti is focusing on creating a cluster in one region before entering others.
“Our strategy is to consolidate `our` presence in one market before expanding to another geographic region,” a spokesperson told the Business Standard.
Bharti is also seeking to open stores in the south of the country and earlier in the year said it plans to operate 140 stores in India by the year’s end.
Currently it operates 90 stores in northern India in areas such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and New Delhi.
In a separate development, India's Reliance Retail, part of the Reliance Industries group, today (Tuesday) announced plans to add 3,000-4,000 stores across all retail formats over the next three to four years, reports Reuters.
'This will be part of US$6bn in investment that we had announced in 2006 for our retail plans,' said Bijou Kurien, president and chief executive lifestyle at Reliance Retail.
The group currently operates 1,000 retail stores in India, across all formats.
