IndiaRetailBiz

‘Croma’ the pan-India retail brand of Tatas for consumer electronics and durables, which on Thursday signed an agreement with Microsoft to set up home networking software shop-in-shops in its stores, launched its 10th mega store in Navi Mumbai on Saturday, the 27th October, 2007.

The new store was inaugurated by RK Krishna Kumar, Chairman, Infiniti Retail and Director, Tata Sons and Arun Gandhi, Director, Tata Sons, reports PTI. This store is second store of the retail chain in Navi Mumbai; the first being in Belapur.

This launch is a part of the company’s target of launching 31 ‘Croma’ stores by 31st March, 2008. Croma has lined up a slew of store launches beginning next week. While its store in Surat will be launched on the 2nd November, its first store in the South will be launched in Bangalore on the 15th November, 2007. These will be followed by stores at Chennai and Hyderabad.

‘Croma’ brand is owned by Infiniti Retail, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons. Tatas have two retailing companies in the group.

Apart from Infiniti Retail, Tatas also own Trent Ltd, another retailing company, which operates retail chains under ‘Westside’ (premium lifestyle products), StarBazaar (Hypermarkets) and Landmark (Books/ Music/ Leisure) brands. Of course, Tatas also have retail chains for selling their own product brands like Titan and Tanishque.

Apart from the newly launched store in Navi Mumbai, Croma has five stores in Mumbai, and two each in Ahmedabad and Pune. One of the five stores operating from Mumbai is a Croma Zip store operating at Santacruz airport in Mumbai.

A typical Croma store occupies around 15,000 sq.ft. of space and offers products under eight categories including Home Appliances, Home Entertainment, Computers & Peripherals, Gaming Software, Imaging Products, and Communication Equipment.

Croma has tied up with ‘Woolworths’ of Australia to provide technical support and strategic sourcing facilities from its global network.