International media groups on Friday closely followed Reliance Industries' first steps into retail trade, reflecting the interest of businesses in their respective countries to tie-up with the Indian conglomerate for gaining a toe-hold in this lucrative market.
Scribes representing media houses from the United States to Japan turned up for the inaugural of Reliance Fresh, the company's first outlet that would sell fruits, vegetables and groceries.
RIL hopes to follow this launch, a pilot project, with the roll-out of a nation-wide chain of hypermarkets, supermarkets, discount stores, department stores, convenience stores and specialty stores at an investment of more than Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) in the next five years.
"Our interest is as much as yours'. They are investing $6 billion and they say even if organised retail grows to $100 billion it would be a fraction of the total market," a journalist with a leading United Kingdom-based financial daily said.
"Abroad, we cannot imagine shopping other than from a retail outlet. It is unthinkable that retail (concept) did not exist here," she said.
Interest from the Japanese media was particularly worth writing home about.
"Japanese companies are keen to associate themselves with Reliance's upcoming format stores," said Takaomi Ohashi, a journalist with Japan Broadcasting Corporation.
"India's economy is growing, the retail market too is booming as regards the middle-class, their style of consumption is changing and that is of interest," he said.
Japan's leading financial newspaper Nikkei had on October 29 -- when the Reliance Fresh brand was unveiled -- deputed its correspondent to Hyderabad to cover the event.
RIL's retail foray is being monitored by consumer durables makers in the land of the rising sun, who view this as an opportunity to take on South Korean domination in the consumer electronics segment in India.
"It is a big scale western type of a store and I think its Reliance strategy that they want to (enter) before foreign retailers come," Japan's Jiji Press New Delhi bureau chief Tetsuya Katayama said.
Besides foreign wire services, representatives of media groups like The Times and The Christian Science Monitor too attended the 'Reliance Fresh' opening.
While the likes of global retail giant Wal-Mart and JC Penney, facing saturation in other markets, are waiting to enter the Indian market, government is yet to allow foreign direct investment in the sector.
New Delhi has, however, permitted 51 per cent FDI in single-brand retailing with prior government approval.
On the other hand, local aspirants like telecom giant Bharti are preparing their retail blueprint through a tie-up with foreign players, possibly either Tesco or Carrefour.
Indian corporate behemoth Tata Sons has already launched its retail brand Croma in association with Australia's Woolworths.
Mukesh, Nita skip Reliance Fresh inaugural
Reliance Industries' entry into retail trade may have been a matter of hype in the media, but company chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani preferred to keep things more low-key.
Mukesh and his wife Nita Ambani, who is in-charge of branding for the retail initiative, skipped the inaugural of 'Reliance Fresh,' the first of several format stores that RIL plans to rollout in the days to come.
Instead, company officials got homemakers who visited the shop today to inaugurate the outlets (11 of them in Hyderabad).
"The presentation of the store and the freshness of products is what I like the most at this store," said T Pratibha Rao, the first customer at the Banjara Hills outlet, which she also happened to inaugurate.
"This (Reliance Fresh) is just a pilot, may be they are waiting for the bigger stores to happen," a source close to the project said.
However, Mukesh Ambani was in Hyderabad on Thursday for performing rituals at the Balkampet outlet for the formal inauguration. He also visited the Reliance Fresh store in the upmarket Banjara Hills.
All the neighbourhood format stores have been designed by Nita, who has in the past designed the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City in Navi Mumbai, besides the Reliance Retail headquarters at the Nocil complex in Mumbai.
The company's entry into the retail sector, in which it would invest Rs 25,000 crore by 2010, has been a matter of intense interest among the media, besides competitors (both local and overseas).
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