Designer Sabyasachi Mukerjee was perturbed on how at the India Luxury Summit, only foreign luxury brands were being talked about. The designer, best-known for his sarees that drape Bollywood beauties, said, “It is time India has its own luxury fashion label”.

India is a country with a history of Maharajas and their palaces, which speaks of their flamboyant lifestyle. In the current era, as sophistication grows in the Indian market for luxury brands, consumers are evolving and are not ready to settle for anything less, speakers at the summit said.

A YES Bank and Assocham India survey titled ‘ India Luxury Top Management Survey 2012’ released on the occasion said China was on track to become the world’s second largest luxury market within the next five years. It said that India, too, was not far behind in adopting luxury.

However, 95 per cent of the chief executive officers representing the global luxury industry said that lack of adequate infrastructure was the key barrier to the growth of luxury industry in India.

“The lack of premium retail infrastructure in India is impacting expansion plans along with bottom-line margins of the global luxury industry due to higher rentals, leading to a demand-supply mismatch,” the survey said.

The domestic market for high-end products and services is estimated at over $8 billion and is currently growing at an annual rate of about 20 per cent. It is likely to cross $14 billion during the course of the next three years on the back of rising per capita income and evolving consumer trends.

The survey also found that a majority of global luxury brands consider wholly-owned subsidiaries or joint ventures as their preferred medium to enter India after the Government relaxed norms early this year to allow up to 100 per cent foreign direct investment.

Bindu.menon@thehindu.co.in

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