Reliance to open 2,000 exclusive outlets to sell telecom products

New Delhi: Reliance Industries plans to open 2,000 exclusive outlets, Digital Xpress Mini, in the current fiscal year to sell the company's telecom services, smartphones, tablets and also accessories of other brands.

These stores will be about 250 square feet and sell the upcoming services of Reliance Jio Infocom. Reliance Jio plans to provide, later this year, all telecom services including mobile phone and fourth generation high speed internet services.

India's largest telecom services provider Bharti Airtel operates 1,700 Airtel-branded stores with majority of them operated by franchisees. In the last 14 months, Airtel rolled-out 100 such company-owned company-operated or so-called COCO stores.

Reliance plans COCO format for all its upcoming stores to maintain a uniformity and customer services, an official said on condition of anonymity. Communication and mobility products category were growing at a faster pace within the technology retail segment of Reliance Digital, a company spokesperson said.

"Driven by rapid technology advancements, this category is witnessing faster replacement cycles. The new concept, Digital Xpress Mini, is aimed at providing a differentiated technology shopping experience to consumers and thereby reinforcing Reliance Digital's position as a front runner in the emerging mobile retail segment," the spokesman said.

Reliance is the latest in a string of companies planning micro-stores to reach the potential customers base in India. Apple, that had so far mostly shied away from going directly to the neighborhoods and restricted their stores to high street and malls, is now planning to aggressively push with smaller stores in large and tier II cities in a renewed India-specific strategy. Apple plans to mainly push its largest-selling and entry-level iPhone 4, iPad Mini and iPad 2 that are priced below Rs 30,000 through those stores, ET had reported last month.

Apple's neighborhood stores would be mainly opened by the company's two major India distributors, Redington and Ingram Micro. Rival Samsung already runs more than 2,000 franchisee-run stores in India and about 1,100 of them are called Smartphone Cafe, which sells the company's smartphones and tablets. The company also has plans to open up to 4,000 exclusive outlets in towns with less than 100,000 population soon.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.