Shoppers Stop (SSL) plans to cover four million square feet (sq ft) across all its formats by the end of fiscal 2013-14, virtually doubling the area from 2.04 million square feet at the end of March 2010. The retailer plans to open six more stores in the department store format by March 2011, with a focus on Tier II and Tier III cities. Moreover, after acquiring a 51% stake in Hypercity, the space addition would increase.
Govind Shrikhande, customer care associate & managing director, SSL said, ?We plan to open around 18-20 stores in the next two years which includes existing cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi.? SSL operates formats such as Home Stop, MAC & Clinique, Mother Care, Estee Lauder, Hypercity, Crossword book stores, Arcelia and the Shopper Stop stores, with a presence in 13 cities. SSL, which currently has presence only in Kolkata in the eastern region of the country, said in an analyst call on Monday, that it is looking at other eastern cities. ?As far as expanding in Eastern India is concerned, we are looking at towns like Siliguri, Durgapur and Patna,? said Shrikhande.
While SSL clocked an increase of 44% year-on-year in its net profit for the September, 2010 quarter at Rs 17.37 crore, Hypercity, a 51% subsidiary of SSL, posted a net loss of Rs 13.84 crore. There are no comparable figures for Hypercity, since the company had not disclosed its results earlier.
Currently, Hypercity runs eight stores in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and the newly opened store in Bhopal. Hypercity?s earnings before interest tax and depreciation (ebitda) analysts said was marginally positive at the store level, at the end of June 2010. BS Nagesh, customer care associate & vice-chairman, SSL said, ?We are looking to clock a turnover of Rs 100 crore each for four out of the eight stores for Hypercity by the end of FY11.?
For the September quarter, while the like-to-like sales for Shoppers Stop stood at 13%, for Hypercity it was higher at 25% year-on-year.