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G. Gurumurthy

The Managing Director of Gangotri Textiles, Mr Manoj Kumar Tibrewal, displaying the new range `Freedom Trousers'.

Coimbatore , June 29

FROM a mere commodity-driven textile company a decade ago, it is a shift into branded garments for the Rs 180-crore Gangotri Textiles.

Having gone through the rigours of a branding exercise for the past five years, the Coimbatore-based company is poised to build capacity and consolidate its production line to secure greater consumer acceptance for its brand.

Tibre's pure cotton and cotton-rich trouser range will give the company room for more innovative fabric construction and designer weaves in the post-quota regime.

Its business model is spread between home textiles (through open-ended yarn), knitting (hosiery yarn) and garmenting for greater synergy. Having just made a Rs 25-crore recent investment to double its garmenting capacity, Gangotri has turned aggressive in capitalising the emerging opportunity in garmenting.

"We are excited about the potential for high-end cotton products in the world market. Our earlier perception about the market, that once quota-free it would favour India's cotton textiles, has proved true. Gangotri has chosen to be in the premium segment of cotton products," said Mr Manoj Kumar Tibrewal, Managing Director.

At present, the company plans to concentrate on stabilising production for the domestic market before venturing into exports.

"Tibre has emerged as one of the leading trouser brands in the country. To cope with the demand, we have expanded the garment unit's production capacity from last year's 500 pieces a day to 1,000," Mr Manoj told Business Line.

Today, the Tibre brand is available in about 520 retail outlets.

Close on the heels of its newly introduced Tibre trouser collection (Freedom, Senator, Club Khakis Classic and Dual), Gangotri is introducing designer trousers in its semi-formal collection. The sales of Tibre trousers, which recorded growth of around 400 per cent in five years, registered Rs 9.45 crore(1.35 lakh pieces) in 2004-05. Its sales in 2003-04 were Rs 6.50 crore (one lakh pieces). Keen on raising its unit value realisation in garment, Gangotri feels women's trousers will be another exciting area of growth, but the company will decide on getting into any new product lines only next year.

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