Chennai-based books and music retailer Landmark now plans to focus on the western and northern markets with its first store opening in Mumbai later this month.
Hemu Ramaiah, chief executive officer, Landmark, said, "After Trent has picked up stake in Landmark, we have become more ambitious. We will be opening 5 to 6 stores in this year, including two in Mumbai and one in Pune."
Himanshu Chakrawarti, chief operating officer, Landmark, said, "This time, we are also experimenting with stores in smaller cities such as Baroda unlike the earlier stores which were in the metros."
Landmark, at present, has five stores spread across Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata. The group has set aside Rs 20 to Rs 25 crore (Rs 200 to Rs 250 million) for this expansion, which will partly be financed through internal accruals and debt.
Landmark logged sales worth Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) last year. Chakrawarti said that they were aiming for a 60 to 70 per cent topline growth this year.
It is launching the western region operations of Westland, a 100 per cent arm in publishing and distribution fields.
For the Mumbai store, the chain is opting for a smaller 18,500 sq ft format instead of the larger stores. Ramaiah said that they would alter the product offering slightly and possibly not have the home store offerings in this outlet.
For now, the company has ruled out opening a books and music retail corner in the Westside outlets, the retail brand of the Trent group.
"The average size of the Westside outlets is 15,000 sq ft, which is generally the starting format for the Landmark stores, so it doesn't make sense to do something like this at this stage."
He, however, did not rule out the possibility completely. Trent had picked up 76 per cent stake in the group for Rs 103.6 crore (Rs 1.04 billion) in August 2005.
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