NEW DELHI: Two years after reports first surfaced that ITC was looking to shut down its premium retail brand Wills Lifestyle as part of its larger strategy to restructure and remodel the loss-making lifestyle retailing vertical, the FMCG major on Tuesday announced its exit from the segment.
The decision was made after a strategic review of its business portfolio, the company said in a regulatory filing.
The company, in its annual report released earlier, said that following a strategic review of the business portfolio a few years ago, it has restructured the lifestyle retailing business during the year.
“At the same time, the product portfolio has been strengthened in alignment with new opportunities and enterprise strengths with a sharper focus on fortifying the core, addressing adjacencies through world-class mother brands and building categories of the future to power growth,” ITC chairman Sanjiv Puri had said in the report.
ITC’s lifestyle retailing business has a nationwide presence through its Wills Lifestyle chain of exclusive speciality stores. It bears noting that ITC has been gradually shutting down stores over the last few years due to high real estate prices and increasing operating costs.
As per New Indian Express, Wills Lifestyle is currently available in 90 exclusive stores in 40 cities and across more than 500 ‘shop-in-shops’ in departmental stores and multi-brand outlets.
The diversified conglomerate on Monday reported a 33.97% year-on-year increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 4,389.76 crores in the June quarter as compared to Rs 3,276.48 crore net profit in the same quarter a year ago.
The revenue contribution from the lifestyle segment to the company’s overall revenue is not known as ITC does not provide standalone revenue of the apparel business. Economic Times, quoting market watchers, had reported earlier that the business had been running at a loss.
