Knitwear-maker Lux Industries is looking to ramp up its premium product offerings. Plans are afoot to strengthen the premium women’s innerwear category under the Lyra brand.

According to Pradip Kumar Todi, Managing Director, Lux Industries, the premium category currently accounts for around 10 per cent of its total revenue, which stood at ₹1,140 crore in FY-18.

“We launched women’s lingerie under the Lyra brand about a year ago. It currently accounts for less than one per cent of our sales, but we expect it to pick up in a big way and contribute to nearly 6 per cent of our revenues in the next two-to-three years,” Todi told BusinessLine .

Increasing urbanisation, the expanding middle-class and rise in per capita income would act as key drivers of growth in the premium category.

While the company caters to mass and mid-mass categories through variants of Lux brands such as Venus, Classic and Cozi, GenX and ONN are aimed more at the premium segment.

It also recently acquired the manufacturing and marketing rights of Virat Kohli’s brand One8, which plans to make inroads into the men’s premium innerwear segment.

Focus on premium products would help shore up the company’s margins.

“Margins on premium products is approximately one per cent higher as compared to the mass variety,” he said.

The company’s EBITDA margin improved to 13.8 per cent during FY-18, compared to 12.6 per cent in FY-17, its annual report shows.

Lux currently has more than 100 products across 14 brands and more than 5,000 SKUs within its existing range of products.

These are sold through more than 950 distributors and 450,000 retail points.

Merger of units

Lux Industries is awaiting SEBI’s approval for the merger of the two units - JM Hosiery and Ebell Fashions - with itself.

JM Hosiery and Ebell Fashions are two privately held companies that are owned by the Todi family which is also the promoters of Lux Industries.

J.M. Hosiery owns the men’s brand GenX while Ebell Fashions owns the women’s brand Lyra. Their accretion to the Lux business will be complementary and profitable, the company said in the annual report.

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