Myntra Takes Its Fashion Brands Global, Partners Emaar For Middle East Expansion

Flipkart-owned fashion and retail platform Myntra has expanded its offerings to international markets as well with the launch of fashion brand, Myntra Fashion, in the Middle East.

Commenting on the international expansion, Myntra CEO Amar Nagaram, said, “Our research identified high levels of potential channels across the globe offering significant opportunities in the online fashion segment. Amongst these, the Middle East stood out in terms of the audience’s demographic profile, extremely high mobile penetration, the similarity in fashion preferences and a large population of Indian origin. We are looking forward to a 5X growth from the partnership over the next two years.”

The expansion will be facilitated by Myntra’s latest partnership with Emaar Group-owned regional ecommerce platform Noon and Namshi that will host Myntra Fashion brand on their website. Noon is a horizontal ecommerce platform that hosts products across categories, while Namshi is a vertical ecommerce platform that primarily focuses on fashion in the premium segment.

Myntra will be largely focusing on the casual wear category, which forms a major portion of its business in the domestic market. The company also believes that the casual wear category is one of the major trends at the moment with the pandemic. Over 75% of the styles being exported by Myntra to these markets are developed in India, the ecommerce emphasised.

The brands that have been launched on Noon are Dressberry, Mast & Harbour, Moda Rapido, Here & Now, Sztori and HRX, while Namshi will list Dressberry, Mast & Harbour, Wrogn and HRX over the next few weeks. These brands and styles were chosen based on regional trends and consumer preferences.

Paytm Mall Sets Foot In Middle East Too

Even Paytm Mall offers its products across the Middle East leveraging its partnership with eBay. The US-based eBay will be helping Paytm to offer its catalogue in the Middle East, in addition Paytm will make eBay’s inventory available to Indian consumers. Paytm executive director Rudra Dalmia, in August, had said that the company will be building a very large business in the region, and is counting on revenue from exports.

The Middle East has proved to be a profitable market for Chinese cross-border ecommerce websites like Shein and JollyChic. The purchasing power of individuals is much higher than that of the Asian audience due to their high per capita income, making it a strategic market to expand to.

According to PayFort’s report on ‘State of Payments in the Arab World’ released in 2016, the Middle East online payment transactions would grow to $69Bn by 2020. The report tracked the online payment transaction in the airline, travel, ecommerce and entertainment section in seven Arab markets – Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Myntra Looks To Optimise Operations

Myntra was acquired by the ecommerce giant Flipkart in May 2014. Then in July 2016, Myntra acquired Jabong in a deal estimated to be worth $70 Mn. After that Myntra and Jabong started integrating their key business functions and streamlining several processes. Flipkart shut down on its fashion portal Jabong in February to divert its focus on Myntra.

The same week, Myntra laid off 80 employees from its Gurugram office. The layoffs impact business operations, product and technology, and marketing verticals. This layoff was an attempt to scale down its operations and operate more effectively. “To drive better efficiencies across the organization, we are consolidating our resources and scaling down operations at our Gurgaon office,” the spokesperson said.

According to company filings, Myntra Designs that operates www.myntra.com and its mobile app had recorded INR 539.4 Cr in loss in FY19. The company reported an operational income of INR 1041.11 Cr, an improvement of 1.55X from INR 407.2 Cr in FY18. At the same time, the company’s overall income for FY19 is INR 1088.8 Cr.