Italian fashion group Benetton’s annual retail sales topped Rs 1,000 crore in India, becoming the first international fashion brand to cross that mark locally. With this, India has also emerged as the largest market for Benetton outside Europe.
Benetton has stayed ahead of other mid-market rivals like Levi’s (Rs.800 crore) and Marks & Spencer (Rs. 550 crore) in India’s fashion retailing. India accounts for about 8% of Benetton’s global sales at the moment. Benetton and Levi’s are among the few global brands which locally produce most of the clothing sold in India. About 96% of the Benetton clothes sold here are sourced within the country, helping it with sharp pricing and quick response to local consumer tastes.
Benetton family consists of three brothers who co-founded the fashion business 50 years ago, but now has diversified interests with ownership of Italian motorways and highway restaurants chains. The brand Benetton has had bruising marketplace battles with aggressive fast fashion giants like Zara and H&M in the last decade, and is poised to face the same in India as well.
Benetton, like Dubai-based Landmark, had a special dispensation to operate stores even though rules did not permit FDI until this year.
Benetton owns only 10% of its 500-odd exclusive stores in the country. The Italian fashion house, known for its bold marketing campaigns drawing upon social and political issues, returned to the elements with UnHate commercial in 2011. It showed leaders across the divide kissing on billboards across global fashion highstreets evoking sharp reactions.
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