ABFRL To Create Platform For D2C Business; Charts Ambitious Path To Build India’s Largest Portfolio Of Digital-First Fashion & Llifestyle Brands

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL), India’s leading fashion company, today announced its plans to set up a platform for foraying into the Direct to Consumer (D2C) business. The Board of directors of the Company in their meeting today provided an omnibus approval to set up a new subsidiary towards building a portfolio of distinct, new-age, digital brands across categories in fashion, beauty and other allied lifestyle segments.  The D2C portfolio will be built through organic and inorganic means. This venture will initially be funded through ABFRL’s internal accruals. At an appropriate time, the company will look to bring in external capital to accelerate the growth journey. The D2C market opportunity in India is expected to be $100bn by 2025. 

The newly incorporated entity will organically incubate and also acquire promising and scalable D2C brands. Other than providing growth capital, ABFRL’s proposition is built around its strong operational expertise where it will utilize its rich experience and capabilities to scale up this portfolio.  

Commenting on the move, Mr. Ashish Dikshit, Managing Director, ABFRL said, “We are excited about the D2C opportunity in India. At ABFRL, we want to build the next set of iconic brands in the digital space as we evolve with our changing consumers. Leveraging our core capabilities around design, product creation, sourcing and brand building that have enabled us to create some of India’s most loved fashion brands in the offline space, we now wish to craft a blockbuster portfolio in the digital space as well. We are confident that this foray will successfully meet the aspirations of digitally native customers and also create long-term value for investors and other stakeholders.” 

The company will now accelerate the process of building the D2C framework and identifying key talent for this play.  ABFRL will look to tap into the broader tech ecosystem and collaborate effectively with its ecommerce partners, tech service providers, digital marketing agencies to scale this business rapidly.