Indriya, the jewellery brand from Aditya Birla Group, has outlined a plan to open 100 new stores over the next 18 months to gain a bigger share of the organised jewellery retail market.

The design-focused brand is also open to pivoting into lab grown diamonds if the category sees sustained consumer interest.

Speaking to Business Standard, Chief Executive Officer Sandeep Kohli, said that while diamond jewellery makes up only about 10 per cent of all jewellery buying in the country, the company has been selling natural diamonds, which, he said, consumers are appreciating.

Kohli added that lab grown diamonds may create a new segment of consumers as they come into the mainstream.

�Being new, we are quite agile and don�t have any baggage of the past. So, it�s very easy for us to pivot into whichever segments the consumer likes. We are not in (the) lab grown diamonds (segment) currently, but we want to be consumer-centric and will go wherever the consumers do,� he said.

The organised jewellery retail market is currently valued at Rs 6-7 trillion in India.

The brand, launched in July last year with an initial investment of Rs 5,000 crore, currently has 12 stores in cities, including New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Indore. It will grow to 14 by the end of this month.

The company will look to tap into the franchise model for expansion.

�There were certain benchmarks that we had set for ourselves. At almost all our stores we are doing better than what we had thought we would do,� said Kohli.

These include parameters like footfall at the stores, sales, and the average bill value, which is almost 40 to 50 per cent over than a new brand �would normally do�.

The brand, which has witnessed a strong festival season, has launched a new bridal collection and a new store at South Extension in New Delhi.

�We want to be a large-scale jewellery player and be among the top two or three players in the segment,� Kohli said.

Indriya competes with the Tata-group owned Tanishq and Reliance Jewels, alongside jewellery companies like Kalyan jewels, Senco Gold, Joyalukkas, and Malabar Gold.

Courtesy: Business Standard