Rupa & Company Ltd. is engaged in the manufacturing, branding and marketing of men’s and women’s innerwear, thermal wear and casual wear for kids across all segments – Economy, Mid-Premium, Premium and Super-Premium. It has over 18 brands and 8,000 stock keeping units (SKUs), with a strong brand recall.
In order to nurture its brands, the company has been consistently involved in robust advertisement & brand promotion activities, thereby spending extensively on brand communication. To enhance the brand recall of its thermal wear, the company recently launched a new ad campaign for its thermal wear brand ‘Torrido’.
The company has been aggressively focusing on the Premium segment (‘M-series’) which offers higher operating margins. To sustain higher margins, it has been expanding its Premium products category, which attracts relatively higher pricing power. To create brand awareness and reach customers directly, it has also opened exclusive business outlets (EBOs) for M-Series.
The company has been constantly reinventing itself by launching new brands and leveraging its existing brands by extending new product lines. It is also looking at leveraging its brand equity by entering the kids innerwear segment and has launched the ‘Kidline’ brand. The company has its presence in the infant wear segment through its brand ‘Bumchum Tots’.
In the innerwear industry, the company is a leader having a distribution network across India. It has a pan-India presence with a large distribution network consisting of four central warehouses, six EBOs, 20 branches, 1,000 dealers and more than 1,18,000 retailers. It is also looking at enhancing availability through presence in e-commerce, multi-brand outlets (MBOs) and large format retail store (LFRs). The company is also looking forward to open Rupa EBOs through the franchise route across India and expand its retail footprint.
Rupa achieved a turnover of Rs. 1,013 crores in 2015-16 as against Rs. 969.07 crores in the previous year. The company has manufacturing facilities at Domjur in Howrah, Tirupur, Bengaluru and Ghaziabad, and sales offices situated in Kolkata, Patna, Varanasi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Indore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Bengaluru, Tirupur and Hyderabad.
The Indian innerwear market is estimated to grow at 13 per cent to reach Rs. 59,540 crores by 2023. Innerwear appears to be a potential growth category. The dynamics in the Indian knitwear, textile and apparel industry is rapidly changing. With the arrival of international brands, rising income base, fast evolving preferences, lifestyle upgradation, etc., the Indian consumers have now started shifting from price sensitivity to brand sensitivity, and their preference for bold colours and innovative designs are some of the key trends to have emerged in these segments.
Rupa has now embarked upon a hypothesis shifting strategy that marked diverse product offerings to its consumers ranging from a mere inner wear to casual wear, specialised womenwear, kids-wear, thermalwear and fashionwear products and further sub-divided them into super-premium, premium, medium, and economy segments. It has further allowed the company to leverage its strengths & capabilities and also to pursue opportunities ahead.
The origin of Rupa & Company dates back to 1985 when innerwear products were just limited to local manufacturers. The company formed by three first-generation entrepreneurs – Mr. Prahlad Rai Agarwala, Mr. Ghanshyam Prasad Agarwala and Mr. Kunj Bihari Agarwal – with a vision of taking the innerwear to the masses and making it available as a big label brand even to the fashion conscious consumer.
Mr. Prahalad R. Agarwala, Chairman of the company, says: “Taking a fresh perspective is part of our journey to achieve progress, deliver growth and create value in a sustainable manner. Looking back, when we had set an ambitious target of becoming a Rs. 1,000-crore company, we were confident of achieving the same backed by our agile and highly responsive approach of recognising opportunities. With a sharp sense of optimism and defined vision, today we have creatively transformed and those opportunities into admirable realities. The fact that every part of the company has contributed handsomely to this endeavour is indicative of not only the effectiveness of our chosen business strategy and foresight, but also of the flawless execution, efficiency and single-mindedness with which everyone in the company has embraced these business objectives. Today, with revenue of more than Rs. 1,000 crores and a market capitalisation of more than Rs. 2,350 crores, we hope to sustain the growth momentum and stakeholders’ satisfaction, while offering a varied level of products in the innerwear, casualwear & fashionwear space and strive to make our presence stronger amongst textiles and apparel manufacturer-cum-retailer not only in the domestic front but also at global destinations”.
Rupa has acquired an exclusive licence from French Connection Ltd. to develop, manufacture, market and sell its innerwear products with the brand name ‘FCUK’ in India through its wholly-owned subsidiary.
Rupa’s products are benchmarked to international standards. The company is also an exclusive licensee of SUPIMA, the premier organisation of American Pima Cotton growers. The coveted SUPIMA certification is given only to a few select manufacturers of high-quality apparel, whose products are made from 100% American Pima Cotton.