Trident Targets Threefold Growth In Domestic Home Textiles By Fiscal 2026

Trident Ltd. is aiming to grow its home textile brand—MyTrident—over threefold to reach a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore by fiscal 2026.

The towel-to-rugs maker will widen its growth by focusing on the domestic market, which has turned out to be the bright spot at a time when the near-term outlook for exports remains uncertain amid global economic headwinds.

"International demand has been under pressure for the past several quarters, but the Indian market showed resilience," Rajinder Gupta, chairman emeritus at Trident, told BQ Prime. "The trend, however, is expected to reverse in two–three quarters as export orders are picking up."

But, there is a lot of untapped potential in the home market, especially with growing awareness among the young generation who are looking for affordable home furnishings, according to Gupta.

The textile division of Trident, part of the $3-billion Trident Group, has a turnover of Rs 3,460 crore as of March 2023, comprising 55% of the net sales. This is a decline of 14% from financial year 2022, when revenue from towel and bedsheet division stood at Rs 4,026 crore, comprising 58% of the overall sales. Its flagship domestic brand, MyTrident, clocked Rs 300 crore in turnover.

India's Rs 35,000-crore home textile sector has been reeling under pressure in the last 12 months due to weaker global demand and inflation woes. Peers like Welspun India Ltd.'s home textile division has also seen a 12% year-on-year decline in revenue to Rs 7,638 crore as of March 2023. However, it saw a growth of 33% in the domestic market, clocking a revenue of Rs 550 crore. Welspun had carved a similar strategy to focus on domestic markets much earlier.

Gupta, however, isn't worried about competition from branded players like Welspun. "The home textile market will follow a similar trend as the apparel market where customers have shown a paradigm shift from the unorganised to the organised or branded market," he said. "Moreover, only about 10–12% of the market is branded. So, even if we have to compete, that would be with the unorganised players."

The size of the $60 billion global home textile market is projected to touch $85 billion by 2031, according to the UN Comtrade and Wazir Analysis. The Indian home textile market is expected to double to reach $16 billion.

Gupta said this was the first time that Trident would be eyeing the domestic market aggressively, although it launched MyTrident in 2014. "We have adequate capacities, but never allocated it to cater to the domestic market. We were supplying to several private players like Flipkart, Myntra, Amazon, Shoppers Stop, DMart, Ikea, among others, but now we are looking to grow our own brand," he said.

Trident aims to spend about Rs 100 crore towards marketing and advertising in the current fiscal. The company is focusing on expanding retail touchpoints to 10,000 from 3,500 at present in two years' time in order to reach out to tier 2–3 cities where it is still not present adequately. It plans to double its exclusive stores count to 100. MyTrident has also appointed Bollywood actor Kareena Kapoor Khan as the brand ambassador.

The company has set aside capex of Rs 1,500 crore this fiscal towards capacity expansion and plant modernisation. In the next fiscal, it plans to spend Rs 2,000 crore towards IT infrastructure, research and development, marketing and other purposes.

The company has four manufacturing facilities—one in Madhya Pradesh and three in Punjab—with a capacity to produce a million towels per day and 40,000 bed sheets per day, along with a million bathrobes annually.

The Punjab-based textile manufacturer is heavily investing in product innovations and automation of its facilities, according to Gupta. "With a focus on (the) environment, we are researching and investing in technology to introduce a fashion towel, which consumes much less water," he said.

The firm is also betting on some other product innovations across bedsheets and towels, such as lightweight, quick-to-dry and organic colours, Gupta said.

The U.S. and the European markets are the major importers of home textiles. But, Trident is testing the waters in Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East.

"We're a debt-free company now, so we can take a few risks," he said.

Gupta said Trident Group's turnover is expected to cross Rs 10,000 crore by fiscal 2025, up from Rs 6,291.3 crore in FY23. It aims to maintain an operating margin of 20–25% unless there's any renewed cost pressure.