Increasing market relevance

The growth this year in India comes as a result of increased local investment: including record number of store openings in a financial year alongside ongoing price and product quality – in order to broaden the appeal of M&S to more customers across the country. 

With the M&S India collections balancing a mix of western contemporary fashion that M&S is famous for, alongside fabrics, colour, quality and price points that are attractive to local customers, the business has seen strong volume uplifts through the year. 

For example, after shaping our denim range to local consumer tastes, we saw significant increases in sales volumes, with total denim sales up 86% year on year. The business also ran an Indian-specific marketing campaign, Rethink, the first of its kind outside the UK, in order to increase consumer awareness and drive footfall to stores. 

Increased pace of store openings across market

M&S opened 16 new stores, including 7 standalone lingerie outlets, across the country and modernised a further 14, bringing the total number of stores to 83.

M&S is now open in 33 cities across India and has a presence across several different online marketplaces meaning customers able to shop with M&S more easily than ever before.                                                         

Commitment to local colleagues and talent

India remains the largest market outside of the UK for Marks & Spencer, and our growth and expansion has been driven by our talented in-country colleagues. As our store presence grows, so does our team with over 500 new colleagues joining our business in the last financial year.

We were pleased to have attained our highest ranking in the Great Place to Work survey this year, as well as being recognised as one of the top 75 places to work for women in India. We will continue to invest in our team and their developments as they are a key to the delivery of our plans.

Year Ahead

Looking to the year ahead our priorities will be to continue to upweight our investment into the market and maintain the pace of our store opening programme to ensure we are in the right places for our customers.

We will build on the success and popularity of our product offer, our made for India customer campaigns, by bringing more tailored & relevant product ranges in terms of fit and pricing, maintaining our quality and value to ensure we appeal to more customers than ever before.

And after modernising and doubling the capacity of our national distribution centre, we will look to improve our e-commerce operation so that we have a multi-channel offering that is competitive in today’s retail landscape.

James Munson, Managing Director M&S Reliance India said, “The team has been dedicated to driving growth across the business this year, which is reflected in our financial performance, and I would like to thank all colleagues for their hard work. Consumers have more choice in today’s retail environment than ever before, and they tell us they choose to shop with M&S because our ranges are appealing, competitive on price, and they always have a great experience with us.”