India's organised retail apparel sector is projected to experience an 8-10% revenue growth this financial year, driven by festive season demand and the rising popularity of fast fashion, according to the latest sector report from rating agency CRISIL. However, despite the growth, retailers remain cautious about expanding their store footprint, focusing on profitability and over-aggressive expansion. CRISIL anticipates an overall profit growth of 10-15% for apparel retailers.
Anuj Sethi, Senior Director at CRISIL, shared insights with CNBC-TV18 regarding the apparel sector's demand trends in an exclusive interview. Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview. Q: 8-10% growth this year on the back of a good festive season, is still lower than the compounded growth that the sector has been reporting between FY18 and FY23 itself.
I wanted two data points from you, one in the first half so far basis your conversations with the companies, what has the growth been? And what is it that you are anticipating in the second half? And how does the second half in particular, compare with all the other years in the previous times the companies have reported numbers only to understand if the growth is back-ended, or there could be a weakness in the festive season as well. A: We are anticipating 8-10% growth this fiscal but it is almost similar to what we saw last year. It is lower than the five-year average, but that included a couple of years post-pandemic when growth rebounded very s.
