If the IPO route is chosen, Domino’s will be the first publicly traded fast food retail chain on the stock exchanges of India.

Nearly, 14 years after its foray into the country, Domino’s Pizza is among the most admired and fastest growing multi-national consumer brands in urban India. It is currently (as of August 2009) the largest fast food chain employing a work force of around 6,000 persons and operating 274 quick service restaurants (QSR) across 54 cities, in 20 states and UTs, of the country. The company is planning to expand network by adding 70 new restaurants to the retail chain.

The first Domno’s Pizza restaurant was launched in January, 1996 at New Delhi. Apart from quality of its pizzas, the brand has earned its reputation as a ‘home delivery’ specialist capable of delivering its pizzas within 30 minutes.

The country’s largest retail group is already into sports segment as it operates a niche multi-brand sports retail chain under “Planet Sports” brand name.

Planet Sports, owned by Winner Sports Ltd — a wholly owned subsidiary of the group’s flagship retail arm Pantaloon Retail– currently operates a retail chain of 69 multi-brand, lifestyle, sports goods across the country.

“Planet Sports,” which currently acts as the distributor and marketing partner of global sports goods brands like Speedo, Wilson and Converse, in India is expecting to garner Rs 10 billion (Rs 1,000 crore) worth of annual business from this fast growing segment.

“We are looking at building up a big sports business. We believe the category of sports alone could be a Rs 1,000-crore business in the next 3-4 years,” said Kishore Biyani, Chief Executive Officer, Future Group to PTI.

“We are into a lot of interesting sports. We represent lot of brands in the country like Speedo and Converse. Sports are one category where we are working more,” added Biyani.

“We are opening up large stores. We opened a large store in Mumbai this month measuring 10,000 sq ft and now we are looking at even larger stores, may be of 20,000-25,000 sq ft,” told Biyani.

Winner Sports, according to media reports, is planning to open 40 new stores this year. While, most of these stores will offer a wide range of sports merchandise of reputed global brands like Speedo, Wilson, Prince, Spalding, Callaway, Puma, Reebok, Nike and Adidas, 15 of the 40 new stores will be exclusively offering ‘Converse’ brand of casual shoes for youth.

The Dussehra day is turning out to be a bonanza time for retailers as Gujaratis, who prefer to buy vehicles, houses, and other expensive durables on this auspicious day, are thronging to luxury show rooms in large numbers.

Benchmark Cars- a Mercedes Benz dealer outlet in Ahmedabad– according to its Vice President Paras Somani, has already sold 45 units of Mercedes luxury cars this month. This year’s selling season began after completion of inauspicious Shraddha (Pitra Paksha) period, ten days ago.

“We delivered 12 models of Mercedes Benz including E-Class and Special Edition C-Class on Dussehra today,” said Somani. “So far, 45 Mercedes Benz have been sold from our outlet, this month,” he added.

Audi, another brand of luxury car which accounts for 48 per cent of market share in luxury car segment of Gujarat, also registered robust business on the Dussehra day.

For Landmark, a car retail franchise, which sells expensive cars of Honda brand and which has car showrooms in all major cities of Gujarat, this has been the best month ever for sales. According to Sanjay Thakkar, its Managing Director, the dealership is close to touching the magic number of selling 100 cars this month.

The Andhra-based company, which has set up a state-of-the-art Integrated Oleochemical Complex at Kakinada with an envisaged annual plant capacity of 100,000 tonnes, is presently operating eight retail outlets of “Naturol” branded renewable energy products– three each of these outlets are located in East Godavari districts and Telengana region of the state.

The company, one of the few bio-diesel makers in India, which wants to focus on promotion of environmentally friendly range of bio-diesel and allied products, has decided to expand its retail network from eight outlets to 100 outlets in the next two years.

“After trying out eight outlets – three in East Godavari district and three in Telengana region — we have decided to expand the retail network to 100 outlets,” Mr M V Rao, Deputy General Manager (Operations) of Naturol, said here in a press statement. “We are also planning to penetrate into new segments related to vegetable oils such as super oleins (high grade vegetable oils) and soaps,” added Rao.

While, most of the current phase of expansion will cover Andhra Pradesh, Naturol has prepared an ambitious blueprint for expansion of its retail network in the coming years. Accordingly, the company has decided to set up over 1,000 new retail stores in neighbouring states— 250 stores in Tamilnadu, 50 stores in Orissa, and 750 stores in Andhra Pradesh.

Domino’s Pizza India, the master franchisee of the US-based Domino’s Pizza in South Asia, was founded 15 years ago by Bhartias of Jubilant Organosys Group in 1995. The prestigeous “Hewitt Best employer Survey 2009″ has recently adjudged the Indian company as the best employer in the QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) Industry in India.

Domino’s has established its reputation as the fastest delivering pizza brand in India, promising execution of pizza orders in less than 30 minutes. The pizza brand is currently a market leader commanding around 45 per cent share of Rs 675 crore pizza business in India.

The Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) retail chain that serves over 100,000 customers every day is presently operating 270-odd stores across 58 cities of India. The brand is planning expansion of the network of its stores to 310 by 31st March 2010.

Apart from offering pizzas at affordable prices, the company has always believed in following the strategy of ‘Think local. Act regional.’ In addition to introducing toppings that suit taste buds of Indian customers, the company has also recently introduced a range of pastas to compliment its range of product offerings in India. This will help the brand to expand overall business as pastas are fast gaining in popularity among young people, who constitute bulk of its customers.

Barista Lavazza is setting up new eateries on either side of Murthal village in Haryana, located on busy Delhi -Karnal highway, that boasts of several dhabas (local eateries serving fresh hot meals), says a recent BS report.

Barista Lavazza will be competing with several dhabas that offer traditional food favourites like paratha, dal makhani, tandoori roti and lassi to travellers on their way to Karnal, Chandigarh, and Shimla. Apart from offering coffee and cake, the new Barista Lavazza eateries will also offer paratha and butter milk, among others, to compete with local dhabas operating along the road. This will, however, be Barista’s second highway store as it already runs a similar store on Mysore- Bangalore highway.

“Coffee, according to Barista’s Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Coutinho, will remain the core promise that Barista Lavazza delivers on,” however, the retail chain “will continue to deliver on the core promise of a truly Italian coffee experience in a warm, friendly and relaxed environment.”

Barista Lavazza, operates a coffee chain of 215 Espresso Bars and 15 Crème cafes. These recently opened Crème cafes require larger space (over 1,600 sq ft) compared to about 1,200 sq ft of Espresso Bars. Crème cafes also remain open for longer hours than Espresso Bars and offer an elaborate food menu — breakfast options, sandwiches, salads, pastas, pizzas and lasagna.

Barista Lavazza is competing in an estimated Rs 400 crore organised coffee cafe chain market with the likes of ‘Cafe Coffee Day’ and ‘Mocha’ coffee chains. The entry into highway eateries business is an attempt of the coffee chain to expand the size of cake as overall size of cooked food business may be running into thousands of crores.

Likewise, the company will be adding 21 Reliance Digital stores to its present strength of 14 stores. Thus, by 31st March 2010, Reliance Retail proposes to have a pan-India retail network of 55 speciality stores comprising 35 Reliance Digital and 20 iStore stores.

The expansion, according to Ajay Baijal, Reliance Retail’s President and Chief Executive (Consumer Durable, IT & Telecom), will entail a new investment of Rs 110 crore as each new Digital store costs around Rs 4 to5 crore while each iStore costs around Rs 40 lakh. This was revealed by Baijal while speaking to PTI on the subject.

Reliance Digital stores, which competes with the likes of Croma (Tatas), Next (Videocon), e-Zone (Future group), Excite, among others, at the national level and with Vivek’s, Vijay Sales, etc at the regional level, occupy a large space of between 10,000-40,000 sq ft each. “iStore,” outlets, which are basically exclusive (single) brand outlets that derive their strength from umbrella brand-name of Apple, on the other hand, on the other hand, are small sized stores occupying 1,000 to 1,500 sq ft space each.

The company, according to Baijal, is already scouting for properties to implement its ambitious expansion plans.

Consumer durables and electronics, which offers a Rs 50,000 crore (over $10 billion) opportunity, is currently dominated by tradional, small traders.

The new store of Zedds, spread over 1,500 sq ft area, showcases an exclusive range of over 200 formals to casuals and ethnic to party wear products.

“In order to set a new definition of fashion and style and meet the ever growing demand of our products we have set up this second store in Hyderabad. The new store opening is a part of our National Expansion & Brand retailing strategy. Zedds is looking at rapid growth of the brand across India. We have plans to reach the total count of 10 EBOs (Exclusive Business Outlets) by 2010 with traces in Metros, state capitals and tier-2 cities following a mix of company owned, franchisee or a store in store format. We have made strategic awareness about our brand in Mumbai with Zedds Kiosks at PVR & Cinemax and plan to open a standalone store in Mumbai soon,” said Rajesh Rawtani, Director, on the occasion of opening of the new store.

“With contemporary designs, beautiful textures and interesting sizes, Stilletoes, Meule and Thongs Flip Flop are some of the hottest products that Zedds has ever offered,” added Rawtani.

Apart from Hyderabad, Zedds is going to target high potential areas of the country in the coming months. It is ready to expand into Mumbai and Indore in the next quarter.

Founded 15 years ago in 1994, Zedds  is acclaimed for its “contemporary styling,’ and has always been known as a ‘design ahead’ brand.

The fast growing brand attributes success to its ability of understanding the desires of its target audience, and offering them something unparalleled to satisfy their quest of ‘individual style statements’. Many of Zedds’ shoes include comfort features, like quilted lining and shock-absorbing padding. Technology, Design and Quality are three guiding principles of the brand. Zedds claims to be the first and only home brand that offers Shoes of any size.

The new IT brandshop is a conceptually different distribution model as Samsung India, which so far has focused on targeting consumers through channels and to some extent through government sales, has for the first time gone in for its own exclusive retail store.

The new ‘IT brandshop’ store located at Arihant Arcade, Ameerpet in Hyderabad will to showcase Samsung’s entire range of IT and consumer products, including, notebooks, netbooks, monitors, printers, consumables, digital cameras, digital camcorders, MP3 players and mobile phones. The shop will also offer IT accessories like laptop bags, headphones etc.

“Retail is a big thrust area for us as we are looking at enhancing our consumer interface this year. The IT Brand Shop will represent a one-stop shop for all Samsung IT products, ranging from notebooks to printers. In the coming months, we plan to set up IT Brand Shops in the other metros as well,” said JungSoo Shin, president and CEO, Samsung South West Asia, who inaugurated the store along with Ranjit Yadav, director, IT, Samsung India, in the presence of other Samsung representatives, dealers and customers.

The new Samsung ‘IT Brand Shop’ store has also created an ‘Experience Zone.’ This zone showcases commonly used applications like music, gaming, movie and imaging. Other digital products have been also integrated into this Demo zone to showcase convergence of digital devices.

The company, which markets its products, among others, under Koutons, Charlie Outlaw, Les Femme, Koutons Junior, K2ONE, FeeMe brands is looking at increasing the number of its stores from over 1,420 to 2,000, by the end of this financial year (31st March, 2010).

The company, which unlike many of its counterparts, operates with comfortable leverage is looking at expanding the network through additional debt. Since, Koutons prefers franchise model for expansion, it does not require much capital to expand its network. As such, it will raise capital through equity dilution only when it becomes necessary to do so.

Koutons is also trying to restrict expansion of its outlets as it wants to focus on converting existing stores into ‘family’ stores where all product categories (apparel, accessories, and footwear) are available under one roof. It will, therefore, consider increasing the size of some of its stores than to open new stores.

Koutons has also put its overseas expansion plans on hold until it is able to consolidate its position in the local market.

Koutons has in the past won several awards, including “Best Retailer Leadership Award 2008,” “Most Admired Fashion group,” “Value Retailer of the Year,” “Chain Store of the Year,” among others, while its Chairman DPS Kohli has won the “Most Admired Fashion Face of the year,” and “Brand Entrepreneur of the Year” awards.

Apart from famous global apparel brands like Wrangler, Lee, Arvind Brands is also retailing a number of home grown fashion labels like Newport, Flying Machine and Excalibur, among others.

While, the retailer under a licencing agreement had last month launched Polo Association, it is now working on introducing the US sportswear brand I-Zod in India.

Arvind Brands is now also going ahead with the relaunch of women’s formal wear under ‘Arrow’ brand in September, this year.

“Women’s formal wear business is growing in India. We launched it in 2005 but withdrew after the slack response. Now the market is evolving and we are re-launching the category by September,” said J. Suresh, CEO, Arvind Brands.

Arvind Brands, which undertook a Rs 400-crore investment on expansion between 2008 and 2012, has already spent Rs 100 crore on the expansion of its product portfolio. The company, which posted a turnover of Rs 440 crore in 2008-09, is expecting a turnover of Rs 550 crore this year.

When almost every retailer, be it in the value, lifestyle, or luxury segment, is reeling under pressure of global financial meltdown, there is one product, or a category of products, that is bucking the trend.

It is none other, but the luxury cars segment!

Mercedes Benz, among the well known luxury cars in the world, which sold 3,625 cars in India in 2008 has recorded a growth of over 45 per cent over the previous year of 2007.

Punjab market, comprising Punjab, Chandigarh, and some parts of neighbouring Haryana, according to a BS report, which sold 275 cars against 175 in the previous year (2007), grew even higher at 48 per cent. In fact, Northern region that among others includes Delhi is ahead of other regions with 38 per cent of total sales.

“Punjab is a very important market for us and we are aggressively looking at the region with new product line. Specially Ludhiana has responded well to the Mercedes sales,” said Suhas Kadlaskar, Director of Corporate Affairs, Mercedes-Benz India.

Kadlaskar, though is not so bullish about sales prospects of the iconic brand for 2009 in India, particularly the first half of 2009.

In a related development another luxury car maker Rolls Royce previewed its Phantom Coupe model (priced for Rs 4 crore in India). Even this model, which sold 1,212 cars in 2008 against 1,010 cars in 2007, has recorded a growth of 20 per cent in sales globally.

After Apple, it’s now the turn of global software behemoth Microsoft (2008 Sales: $60 billion) to set up a chain of Microsoft retail stores.

David Porter, who has worked for over 25 years with the world’s largest retailer Walmart in the areas of infotech and merchandising, has been entrusted with the task of preparing the roadmap for Microsoft’s foray into retail. Apart from deciding on locations, Porter will also decide on designs of the stores, reports AFP.

“There are tremendous opportunities ahead for Microsoft to create a world-class shopping experience for our customers… I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases, and we’ll share (what we learn) from our stores with our existing retail and OEM partners,” said Porter.

“We’re working hard to transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience at retail,” said Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer.

Microsoft, known for creating ”Windows” operating system (which powers 88.26 per cent of client computers worldwide), Internet Explorer (67.55 per cent market share) and “Office” software suites (400 million copies/ 95 per cent market share), among others, rules the world of software. In the past few years, Google and other open source software service providers are making inroads by bringing about a paradigm shift by introducing web-based (cloud) computing as opposed to desktop computing in which Microsoft products excell.

Microsoft, like Apple, is also trying to make a difference by launching multimedia hardware, multi-media devices like Xbox (playstation) and Zune (portable media player).

Founded by legendary Bill Gates and his colleague Paul Allen in 1975, the $160 billion (current Market Cap) Microsoft which employs over 91,000 persons is currently managed by Steve Ballmer (CEO).

The observation of the Reliance executives is in tune with Azim Premji’s private equity firm valuing Subhiksha for about Rs 2,300 crore against annual (FY 2007-08) sales of Rs 2,305 crore. Azim Premji, it may be recalled, had paid Rs 230 crore to I-Venture for 10 per cent stake in Subhiksha’s equity in September, 2008.

While, most retailers, following economic slowdown are facing cash crunch due to declining footfalls and customer spendings, Reliance Retail, is not witnessing any such problems. Not only, it has superior parantage than most others, but also has no major debt-payment obligations like others. (While, both Subhiksha and Vishal are highly leveraged, even the retailers like Pantaloon Retail (Future Group) and Shoppers’ Stop are leveraged more than the previous year).

To fight out the slowdown, Reliance Retail, though is fine tuning its growth strategy. It will now focus on ’speciality’ format more than its ‘value’ formats.

“We will shift to a slightly lower gear, but will still keep growing. The speciality format is just coming out of pilot phase. Now, we will scale it up,” said the executives.

Reliance Retail, after having established about 750 stores of ‘value’ formats comprising Reliance ’Fresh’ (convenience), ‘Super’ (mini hypermarket) and ‘Mart (hypermarket) in about 27 months, will now focus on ’speciality’ formats that until now were still in a nascent stage. Reliance Retail’s speciality formats include, Reliance Trendz (apparel), Digital (consumer electronic & durables), Footprint (footwear), Jewels (jewellery), Wellness (health and wellness), TimeOut (books, music, leisure), Homeliving (homeware and furnishings), Vision Express (Eyewear), iStore (Mac products), Office Depot (stationery and office products).

The last three formats of the company are in alliance with international retailers, who are giants in the field and geography of their operations. These alliance are based on either franchisee or partnership (joint venture) arrangements. Reliance Retail has also formed a joint venture with the UK-based Marks & Spencer for selling fashion and homeware in India under single brand retail policy guidelines of the Indian government.