BANGALORE: Sweet dreams’ to ‘Dream homes’ is the catch line for their new offerings – Mattress, pillow and mat major Kurlon today announced their entry into the home furnishing segment – the entire range from upholstery, bed linen and bath linen. A new logo for this segment was also unveiled today.
The company claims that they are the first and only player in the branded curtains market and the only player to have a complete offering. In terms of competition, Bombay Dyeing are into towels and bed linen, while S Kumars are into bed linen, pillow cases, bath accessories and table linen.
Kurlon plan is to grab leadership by capturing 40 per cent of the total branded market for all their porducts over the next three years on the back of its 44 sales offices with over 5500 dealers. Kurlon estimated the curtains market to be worth around Rs.35 – 40 billion in India alone. A ball-park figure for the branded bed linen and towels markets would be around Rs.10 billion a major chunk of pie is presently Bombay Dyeing’s. No figures were available for the branded upholstery market.
Kurlon, which has a current turnover of less than Rs.2 billion, has ambitions of a 10 fold growth over the next three years to Rs.20 billion by outsourcing manufacture. Some potential suppliers including from over seas have already been short-listed. They claim to have a strong design team that will provide the designs and specifications, and feel that maintaining sustained quality standards across a number of suppliers is their strength.
Manipal group chairman and CII Karnataka past chairman Sudhakar Pai said that he was open to all options including partnering or financing potential supplier/s during a discussion with Indintelevision.com on the sidelines of a press conference at Bangalore today. With regards to overseas vendors, Pai revealed that they are looking at suppliers in Vietnam and some other countries.