"From the current 350 we will be scaling up our supermarkets to 500 by March 2008," he said, while announcing the re-branding of Fabmall grocery supermarkets to 'more'.
The re-branding follows acquisition of the Trinethra Super Retail that includes retail brands Fabmall, Trinethra and FabCity by Aditya Birla retail in January last year.
As a result of the integration, 68 Fabmall stores in Karnataka would be re-branded under the umbrella of 'more', he said.
The acquisition has provided the firm a strong retail footprint in South India, extending to 275 stores in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where it is the leading food and grocery retailer. Currently, the company has 60 stores in Bangalore, eight in Mysore and 10 in Mangalore.
All Fabmall stores would be re-branded to 'more' by January end. The company is looking at 100 stores in Karnataka by the end of this year, Sinha said.
The 'more' stores would offer products from various categories including fresh fruits, vegetables, staples, personal care, home care, pharmacy among others.
The firm is looking at an investment of Rs 8,000-10,000 crore (Rs 80-100 billion) in next three to five years over 1,500 supermarkets and 50-100 hypermarkets across the country, the CEO said. "We will be also be exploring other retail formats by the end of this financial year".
Spread over a minimum area of 75,000 sq ft, the hypermarkets under the retail chain would be branded "more Mega stores", Sinha said.
"Currently the Group has one hypermarket operating under brand "FabCity" in Mysore. We will be launching the first largest hypermarket spread over 90,000 sqft in Baroda next month", he said.
Going forward the Group would have anything between 50,000-1,00,000 sqft of space for such markets, he said.
The domestic retail industry is today valued at around $320 billion. Within the organised retail sector, food and groceries account for around 14 per cent of the total market.
