Tamil Nadu top southern market in terms of Tanishq retail footprint

CHENNAI: Driven by strong demand for gold and studded jewellery, Tamil Nadu has emerged as one of the biggest markets for jewellery brand Tanishq boasting maximum number of stores in the southern region. “In south India, Tanishq has the highest numbers of stores in Tamil Nadu followed by Karnataka and Telangana,” said Ajoy Chawla, CEO, Tanishq. Tamil Nadu, he added, currently has 60 stores while Karnataka has 37 and Telangana 18.Not surprisingly, the brand has been expanding its retail footprint aggressively in Tamil Nadu. “In the south we added five new stores in the first half of this financial year of which two were in Chennai and one each in Vellore and Salem,” added Chawla. The one non-TN outlet in this tally was a store in Mysore. This month the brand will add two more stores of which one will be in Tiruvallur in Tamil Nadu and another in Vanasthalipuram in Telangana. “Overall, we’ve added 22 stores for brand Tanishq and 30 for Mia in H1 to take the tally to 485 and 210,” said Chawla. “By the fisc end we will have 510 Tanishq and 250 of sister brand Mia stores across the country.”The focus on Tamil Nadu has been borne out by the fact that the state has been one of its top performing festival markets this Navratri.“We saw south and east picking up faster and north and west only catching up during the Dusshera weekend,” added Chawla. In the south, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad were the top markets while eastern markets like West Bengal and Bihar also saw strong footfalls during Durga Puja. The jewellery sector saw 10% higher festival spending this Navratri than last year despite the spike in gold prices.