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Designer furniture on display at a store in Bangalore in this file picture.

Anjali Prayag

Bangalore, Aug 14 There are over one lakh dollar millionaires in the country and more than 60,000 of them furnish their homes with uber luxury items. From a Hickory chair that cost about Rs 50,000 to Glant furnishings (priced at about Rs 3,000 a metre) to floral arrangements from Natural Decorations Inc that carry price tags of Rs 4,000 to 25-inch mattresses that would make the wallet lighter by Rs 50,000, the lifestyle of the rich and famous in India is now on par with millionaires in the US or Europe.

Industry observers estimate that the home interiors spend of rich Indians would be about 30 per cent of the cost of their homes. Mr J. Sasidar, CEO of Bangalore’s Mon Chateau, a store that sells American luxury lifestyle products, says Indian homes are increasingly resembling those of rich Americans and Europeans. “Families are spending close to Rs 10 lakh on doing up a single room and they don’t mind changing the look every five years.”

Indian homes are now familiar with Stickley and Bernhardt furniture, Simon Pearce unleaded crystal glassware, Sahelia luxury bed linen and Merida Meridian rugs. Renaissance Homes, a Delhi-based lifestyle store, is the exclusive distributor for top-end furniture brands such as Baker and Henredon, Bernhardt and McGuire.

“Clients with a Rs 3-crore house would easily spend about Rs 75 lakh on premium furniture”, says Ms Anjaleka Kripalani, who founded Renaissance along with her sister in 1995. She has seen the premium furniture market grow from about 0.01 per cent of the furniture market about a decade ago to two per cent now.

The size of the total furniture market in India is estimated at Rs 1,000 crore, with the home market constituting about 65 per cent. The premium and luxury segment of the market combined accounts for 30 per cent (21 per cent premium and 8 per cent luxury) of the home furniture market, according to Technopak Advisors, a business consulting firm.

The furniture market in India is likely to witness an accelerated growth, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 30 per cent, according to Mr Puneet Khanna, Senior Consultant, Technopak Advisors.

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