Ethnic Wear Holds Lions Share In Women Apparel Market

Ethnic wear has always been popular among Indian female buyers and in recent times, the popularity has taken over other categories in the women apparel market. If industry experts and numbers are to be believed, ethnic wear currently constitutes 50 per cent of the total women apparel sales.

Arun Sirdeshmukh, the business head of Amazon India, said, “Women’s ethnic wear is the most popular category on Amazon Fashion. We are witnessing a shift in demand from sarees and dress materials to size categories like kurtas at a much higher pace compared to size-free categories.”

Amazon has witnessed an overall growth of over 80 per cent Y-o-Y for women’s wear, out of which women’s ethnic wear segment contributes over 50 per cent. Under ethnic category, the online platform is also focusing on building handloom selection.

A division of Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd., Pantaloons, echoes a similar trend in the offline space. The women’s wear segment in Pantaloons has shown a robust growth rate of around 25 per cent over the past couple of years; with both ethnic and western wear performing equally well. Currently, Women’s wear contributes around 45 per cent to Pantaloons’ business.

“Our products are priced in the range of Rs. 299 to Rs. 999/-. Currently, we have 16 `Pantaloons Women’ exclusive stores across India. Our in-house ethnic wear brands namely Rangmanch, Trishaa and Akkriti are performing extremely well and we are happy to share that our ethnic wear brand `Rangmanch’ is slated to become a Rs. 300+ crore brand in FY’18,” the former CEO of Pantaloons, Shital Mehta said in an email response on July 2017.

Currently, the offline platform has 209 stores in 97 cities across India.

The ethnic wear market’s worth is around Rs 70,000 crore currently, out of which 70 per cent is dominated by the unorganized players. It is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9 per cent to reach Rs 1,26,210 crore in 2019.

Also, the Indian fashion retail market which was worth Rs 2,97,091 crore in 2016 will grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.7 per cent to reach Rs 7,48,398 crore by 2026 major players being Lifestyle, Central, Shopper’s Stop and Pantaloons among others.

Women’s ethnic wear market in India is booming with brands like BIBA, TCNS Clothing and FabIndia emerging as giant players in the segment. With the entry of new players in the women’s ethnic wear market, it would be interesting to see whether the new players take over the segment or the present giants retain their position and grow bigger.