Lulu group, which has built five shopping malls in India with Rs 7,000 crore investment, now plans to develop about a dozen more malls as the UAE-based group sees huge growth opportunities in the Indian retail space.
The group has five operational malls in India at Kochi, Trivandrum, Thrissur, Bengaluru and Lucknow, comprising about 3.7 million square feet of leasable area. Shibu Philips, Director-Shopping Malls of Lulu Group India, said the Indian retail market is still "under-utilised" with the share of organised retail being still low.
"India is an extremely important market for Lulu. It is a young population whose per capita income and consumption is increasing. It is a very under-utilised market because if you look at the organised retail, it is still only 12 per cent. So, I believe that there is a lot of opportunity here if you have the right business model. Lulu is completely focused on India," he told PTI in an interview.
In the first phase of shopping mall business in India, Philips said the Lulu group invested about Rs 7,000 crore to develop five shopping malls, of which Bengaluru property is not owned by it.