Prestige plans to have 250 Smart Kitchen stores by ’08

NEW DELHI: Kitchen appliances maker TTK Prestige will extend its retail presence by opening over 100 ‘Smart Kitchen’ showrooms across the country taking the number of such outlets to 250 by the year-end 2008. These outlets house the entire range of kitchen appliances from Prestige, including cooker and non-cooker products.

At present, the company has 156 such outlets and is already ahead of its target that it had set for the same period earlier. The company would also add 12 new products to its portfolio in January next year. Part of Rs 1,100 crore TTK Group, TTK Prestige is expecting a turnover of around 300 crore for this fiscal against Rs 232 crore a year ago.

The company will make investments to the tune of Rs 20 crore in setting Smart Kitchen outlets, including both franchisee and exclusive outlets. Also, additional investment of Rs 10 crore has been done towards its manufacturing facility in Uttaranchal that will be operational from March onwards next year.

According to Chandru Kalro, VP (marketing), TTK Prestige, “We have introduced 52 new products in last six months and we plan to inundate the market with a range of 10-12 new products like pans that can flip an omelet with the press of a button, electric kettles which can even brew desi-chai, a non-stick roller pan, a programmable fuzzy logic rice cookers and lots more.” Moreover, the company also plans to make its foray into other non-cooker categories such as wet-grinders, bone-china and porcelain crockery.