Small brands with turnovers of Rs 10 crore to Rs 25 crore and mid brands with turnovers of Rs 25 crore to Rs 100 crore were affected by low sentiments, reveals the Clothing Manufacturers’ Association of India (CMAI’s) Apparel Index for the January to March 2015 quarter.
Although mid brands performed a little better than small ones, their performance was lower than the overall Index growth of 7 points, which was mainly owing to big brands.
The Index value for small brands was 4.92 points and for mid brands was 6.14 points, compared to large brands’ index value of 8.87 points and giant brands’ index value of 13.33 points.
The overall Apparel Index figure of 7 points has been arrived at after accounting for individual index values. Sales turnover at 5.4, sell through at 1.9, and investments at 2.4 in Q4 fiscal 2014-15 contributed positively to the overall performance whereas inventory holding at 2.6 contributed negatively, CMAI said.
For large brands, even though inventory holding increased (2.85) and is much higher than others, the impact is offset by the high increase in sales turnover (6.15). For small brands, the increase in inventory holding and a modest increase in sales turnover led to failure. Mid brands however, show better control over inventory holding compared to small brands, though the increase in sales turnover was almost the same, according to CMAI analysis.
Explaining the impact of inventory, Sandeep Jain, executive director, Monte Carlo, said, “The garment industry is at an average state as of now and is not performing too well. In such a situation, lesser inventory works better for any organisation. We sold much lesser T-shirts and denims on discounts this quarter, resulting in improvement in overall performance.”