IndiaRetailBiz

In a coup of sorts, Reliance Retail, the retail arm of Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance group, in a first exclusive alliance with an international brand, has bagged the exclusive marketing and distribution rights for Apple’s iStores in India. Apple, the U.S.-based, maker of hugely popular iPhones, iPods and Mac computers, is among the world’s leading consumer and professional electronic players.

Interestingly, this is for the first time that the US$ 19 billion Apple is tying up with a big corporate house for distribution anywhere in the world, according to an Economic Times report.

Reliance has planned to rollout its first standalone exclusive iStore this month in the Indian tech capital city of Bangalore. Reliance will set up 10 exclusive iStores by end-2007. These iStores, selling all Apple products in India, will be a part of Reliance Digital, the durables’ speciality format of Reliance Retail. Reliance Digital, is currently operating a store in Faridabad (NCR).

Apple, with this deal, will get an immediate presence and scale in the Indian market, as it has been struggling, since many years, to have its presence in the country. Many of its earlier attempts to make Mac computers and notebooks popular in the country did not yield intended success due to their high prices. Though, Apple computers are popular only among a handful of professionals designers, Apple’s iconic portable music players iPods, introduced a couple of years ago, which are sold in the country through selected high-end speciality retailers have found ready acceptance of the young and rich in the country.

Reliance Digital, which is competing with Tata Infiniti’s Chroma and KIshore Biyani’s e-Zones as well as Videocon’s Next in the durables’ space will benefit from the deal as it would be able to enhance its image as the iStores would be co-branded.