Indian Retailer

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail Ltd plans to open a total of 45 stores of its books and music retailing business -- Reliance TimeOut -- across India over the next three to five years.

The multi-format retailer, which operates seven stores of TimeOut, said it wants to tap India's Rs 3,500-crore book retailing industry, of which only 40 per cent is organised.

"In the next 3-5 years (or December 2014), we will have a total of 45 TimeOut outlets across four states - mainly in western and southern India. Our strategy is to first saturate a town, then a state followed by the entire region," Reliance Retail, Business Head, Reliance TimeOut, Deepinder Kapany told PTI.

He said the next couple of months will see five stores being opened in Mumbai.

"The next few stores in (calender year) 2010 will come up in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Bangalore. We want to saturate Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and the National Capital Region (NCR)," Kapany said.

This is part of an overall aggressive expansion strategy by the format, which will enter Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Mysore, Mangalore, Ahmedabad, Baroda and Jamnagar.

Reliance Retail will expand through the cost-effective model of revenue-sharing format with property owners.