RPG Cellucom

RPG Cellucom, the joint venture between the RPG group and Dubai-based mobility enabler, Cellucom is one of the largest retail stores for IT and Telecom products. Currently they have fifty-one stores in four major cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Pune, and Mumbai. Apart from IT products, they endorse most mobile brands that are available in India. The joint venture will invest Rs 2,000 crore on mobile and IT retailing by the end of the calendar year. The company is acquiring 1.5 lakh sq ft of retail space. RPG Cellucom is in talks with authorities and officials to sell laptops and other IT products in Apna Bazaar chains. They have also tied up with Spencer's Daily outlets in Pune. The company started its operations with its first stand-alone outlet in the Sahara Mall, Gurgaon, and has been aggressively growing since then. It now has presence in all the leading malls in Delhi and NCRs. It has plans to open over 500 exclusive retail outlets in other metros and cities by the year-end.

MobileStore

The company has already launched around 222 stores in sixteen cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad. The stores are of three formats: large-1,000-1,500 sq ft; medium-800-1,000 sq ft, and compact-200-400 sq ft, which will be part of shopping malls and high streets, in addition to stand-alone locations. The MobileStore houses a range of mobile handsets, in addition to telecom solutions, bill collections, handset exchange and repairs, etc, as well as accessories and value-added services. While other offerings will include digital cameras, iPods, gaming devices such as Xbox, and direct-to-home (DTH) connections. They plan to have 2,500 outlets and 4,000 touch points covering 600 cities in the next three years.

Getting Organized
The retail market for mobile phones-handsets, airtime and accessories-is already a Rs 75,000 crore business, growing at over 20% per year. In comparison, the consumer electronics and appliance market looks paltry, at just Rs 25,000 crore with a growth rate just half of the mobile market. Also, there are more than 90,000 retail outlets in the country out of which only 1% are organized. The figure is lucrative enough for entrepreneurs and business houses like Essar and BK Modi group to plunge into. In a span of three years we have seen an array of retail chains like Mobile Magic and Mobile NXT opening their stores exclusively focusing on the mobile business. Already big names in retail business, Pantaloons and Subhiksha are not far behind.

India has already emerged as the fastest growing mobile market globally, with close to 5 mn new handsets and 7 mn subscriber additions every month. And, this has compelled telecom distributors and retail houses to look at this business more seriously. Romy Juneja, founder and COO, MobileNXT says, "India thrives on a huge distribution market and that's why local players will have a big role to play in mobile penetration." He also added that a consortium of investors with a $5 mn investment is backing the Bangalore headquartered company.

Pantaloon Retail of the Future bazaar group has recently floated a separate company called Convergem Retail India to cater to growing demands of the mobile industry. Investments to the tune of Rs 100 crore have been earmarked for this venture. As of now they are quite successful, as the group has opened its outlets in its existing Big Bazaar stores across the country, thus cutting down on real estate costs. "India has 160 mn mobile subscribers and we are looking at 50 mn more this year, translating into a huge opportunity for mobile retail," says Malini Chopra, head of Convergem. The Mobilestore, another chain of retail stores, is a joint venture between the Essar group and Richard Branson's Virgin group. As of now they have opened 200 plus stores in India, which is a testimony to the success of this business model.