Spykar launches kids wear brand 'OYO'

Company Brief

New Delhi, April 21, 2008

Lifestyle jeans brand Spykar is now foraying into the kidswear segment through the launch of a new brand OYO in April. The company plans to set up 30 exclusive brand outlets in the first phase as part of its retail plans and then extending it further to multi-brand outlets in the next phase.

OYO Concept Note:

It's not easy to be a child, so much to convey about personal tastes but so little opportunity. Enter OYO, acronym for ON YOUR OWN, brainchild of lifestyle fashion brand Spykar.OYO is all about understanding that children love to emulate their parent. They want to look as cool as daddy, as well groomed as mommy, but simply do not have those options in their closet.

"With the launch of OYO, shopping abroad for children clothes may be quite unnecessary", says Sanjay Vakharia, Marketing Director, Spykar. "Fabrics available all across the world are same but it just depends on how you treat it to get the right finish. With our experience of worked – upons in the denim wear and cotton category, we hope to create complete magic in the kids wear category. Like father – Like son, Like mother – Like daughter is the kind of in – vogue dressing we'll promote as a part of OYO. We sense a need in this category and we'll surely have offerings radically different from those available".

OYO Launch & Expansion Plan:

Lifestyle fashion brand company Spykar is venturing into the children's segment with the 'OYO' brand. Confirming the development, Spykar marketing director Sanjay Vakharia said, "We will be launching the brand 'OYO' for the age group of 4-14 sometime in the month of May, 2008 and the product would be outsourced from reputed vendors."

We will be starting with 30 exclusive brand outlets of OYO spread over 12-15 cities in the first phase with an investment of aropund Rs 15 crore, he said, adding that the funding would be done totally through internal accruals.

According to Vakharia, the company would also be expanding its reach to muti-brand outlets in due course of time.

"We plan to have a total of 75 stores by te end of this calendar year (December 2008). We are also planning to introduce this brand at select multi-brand outlets including Shoppers Stop in the next season," he said. With this foray, the company is planning to compete with the likes of companies like Gini and Jony, Ruff, Lilliput etc. Raymond had also recently launched a dedicated kidswear brand 'Zapp'.

According to industry estimates, the kids apparel market in India is worth about Rs 27,000 crore of which only about Rs 500 crore goes to the organised sector. The kidswear market in India including uniforms has seen a growth of 18.2 per cent in the year 2007, while kidswear market witnessed annual value growth of 22.5 per cent in 2007 as compared to 2006, says India Apparel Report by Images F&R Research, which has been published in recently released Images Yearbook 2008.

Vakharia said that the company was looking at sealing a deal for a dedicated collection for the OYO brand besides looking at getting into the premium jeanswear segment.

"Spykar might get into premium jeanswear through a hybrid of licensing and self-created brand and we have talked to some companies in that regard. However, we have no plans to bring a foreign brand into India, he added. Spykar, which had recently concluded a deal with Avigo Capital Partners for a capital infusion of $5 million is also looking at tapping the capital market for raising funds.

"The money from the stake sale would also be used for expanding the reach of our Spykar outlets from 140 stores currently to 175 stores by December 2008," Vakharia said. The market conditions currrently are very bad and so we are not looking at tapping the capital markets currently. However, the option of coming out with an IPO is not ruled out at this moment at all in 2010, he added.

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WOW factor communications

Arun.S

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