If brand Adidas can be sold through company owned stores why not brand Reebok. German sportswear major Adidas Group now wants to seek government’s nod to open fully-owned stores for brand Reebok in the country under the single brand FDI policy.

The group had recently got nod for its other popular brand Adidas.

Dave Thomas, Managing Director, Reebok & Adidas India told BusinessLine , “Yes we will make an application for Reebok soon. There is nothing stopping us from doing that. We are very happy with the nod for Adidas and we are targeting to open our own Adidas store by the end of next year.”

He said that being able to open fully-owned stores for Adidas will be a great enabler for the company’s future growth in India. “We went for a nod for Adidas as we wanted to bring in bigger store formats to India which we have around the world. From the Adidas point of view, we are looking to bring in more premium concepts,” he said, adding that concepts like Adidas Originals enjoy a much bigger share of the sales pie globally but not in India.

Since the Indian consumers are evolving, the company believes premium concepts have huge opportunity.

Asked whether adhering to the mandatory sourcing norms could pose a challenge, Thomas said that company already sources a large percentage of its business locally.

Talking about brand Reebok, Thomas said that it has very good franchise partners stores at good locations and are able to tell the story of the brand strongly.

“Over the past few years, Reebok has become the number one fitness brand in India. We have also made a much bigger push towards women consumers through Reebok which is proving quiet successful at our stores,” he added.

The company opened its 146th Reebok Fit-hub store in Delhi on Wednesday.

Overall, the company wants to increase the number of franchise stores to 1,000 stores under adidas, adidas Originals and Reebok by 2020.

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