Last year I had written about interesting Test match between 2 retail giants who had announced their plans to open hundreds of stores across India.
Bharti Wal-Mart had announced their wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management operations in India. Close to their heels, Reliance Retail has announced their plan of entering the same business segment with plans of supplying to kirana stores and institutional buyers.
More than 12 months have gone by and we have a clear winner. Reliance Retail is now a 600-store chain, while Wal-Mart, which had planned to start operations by the year-end, does not have a single store. Infact, they have differed their plans to 2009.
Within 12 months of announcement, Reliance Retail has aggressively pursued real estate across India and have already garnered large footprint giving them a huge advantage in growing organized retail market.
Winning the high stakes match means getting a foothold in the $300 billion Indian market that is dominated by an estimated 12 million mom-and-pop shops, roadside vendors, and outdoor markets.
I doubt Bharti-Walmart will ever be able to challenge Reliance in retail business.
And it is not only in Retail, Reliance seems to be gaining huge advantage in its Telecommunication business as well with Reliance pursuing MTN bid after Bharti’s talk with them fizzled out.
Update: As Saurabh pointed out in the comments the MTN bid is done by Anil Ambani owned ADAG group. Also, would like to know any one knows if Bharti-Walmart store has opened up anywhere in India?