Malabar Gold aims to be world’s largest jewellery retailer

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Feb 24, 2017

India’s largest gold and diamond jewellery retailer Malabar Group will invest around Rs 1,000 crore this year to expand its presence in Indian and overseas market with the objective to be the world’s largest jewellery retailer.

"This is our largest vertical expansion. The expansion at a crucial time reflects our renewed confidence and strong commitment to the Gulf, India and Far Eastern markets. The objective is to become the world's largest jewellery retailer in a few years down the line,” Group chairman MP Ahammed told a news agency.

The Rs 26,000-crore Malabar Group, which is also the top five jewellery retailer in the world in terms of turnover, had Rs 11,500 crore coming in from overseas sales and Rs 10,700 crore from domestic sales in 2016.

"The first phase of expansion, which is already underway, will have us investing Rs 620 crore on 24 more stores. Out of this 14 have already been opened since January, 13 of them in the Gulf, which is our largest market in terms of revenue and one in Bengaluru," said O Asher, Managing Director of the company.

Kerala based Malabar Gold & Diamonds will be spending a large chunk of this new capex to enter new markets like Hong Kong, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

“The second phase of expansion, which will begin in the second half of the year, will see the company investing Rs 350 crore more, most of which will go into entering Indonesia, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka, where the company is conducting market research now”, Asher added.

The expansion will also see the company hiring over 1,000 professionals, including more than 400 in the GCC and 600 in the country by March. It currently has 9,000 employees.