Billionaire Birla sees his consumer business growing to $25 billion in next 5 years

Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla expects the consumer business of his $65 billion metals-to-fashion conglomerate growing to $25 billion in the next five years as he starts selling gold jewelry in the world’s second-biggest bullion market.

“Around 20% of our Group’s revenue today comes from consumer businesses,” Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, said. “And I believe this will increase to over 25% over the next five years to reach about $25 billion.” 

The group will invest 50 billion rupees ($597 million) in the jewelry business, launched Friday under the brand Indriya, Birla said. It aims to secure a position among India’s top three jewelry retailers as the Indian market expands from 6.7 trillion rupees to as much as 13 trillion rupees by 2030.

Indriya will initially open stores in three cities – Delhi, Indore, and Jaipur – and then in more than 10 cities within six months. 

The ambitious target comes at a time when the conglomerate is adding more firepower to its consumer business portfolio, which includes paints, telecom, fashion and financial services.

The group’s chemical and textile company Grasim Industries forayed into the paints business in early 2021 and aims to generate revenue of $1.2 billion in three years from the operations as it takes on entrenched rivals such as Asian Paints Ltd. and Berger Paints India Ltd.

In telecom, the group’s loss-making wireless carrier Vodafone Idea Ltd. raised 180 billion rupees from the country’s largest follow-on public offer in April, signaling the start of a turnaround for a company the tycoon had warned in 2019 was headed for insolvency.

Aditya Birla Capital Ltd., a part of the Aditya Birla Group, in April rolled out a direct-to-customer app aiming to add 30 million users in the next three years.