Levi’s to start company owned stores, e-commerce platform in India

Iconic apparel brand Levi’s is planning to open company owned stores and launch its e-commerce platform to reach deeper in India, president and CEO Chip Bergh said.

“One of the company’s growth algorithms is to try and reach deeper into countries like India,” Bergh told the Times of India. “Our business could be twice the size of what it is now in the next five years. Investments in e-commerce and retail will help us do that.”

When Bergh took over, the company had around 150 franchisee partners, who operated one or two stores each. Currently, it has 22 franchisee partners, each of whom operates a larger number of stores. This has helped channelise more investment into the brand.

Currently, for one pair of jeans, Levi’s sells three tops globally and Bergh wants to reduce that number. In India, however, the ratio is 1:1 for the clothing company.

While globally Levi’s has been reporting consecutive years of revenue and profit growth and slashed its debt by more than half, in India, it turned profitable in 2014 after nearly two decades of lull.

It reported a net profit of around Rs 79 crore in 2015-16, up 64% over the previous year with sales growing at 18.5% to Rs 753 crore.