The company, which recently had acquired stake in Cellucom, is looking to invest Rs 200 crore for its retail expansions.

Pan-India presence

“Currently, we are perceived as a North-centric organisation. We are looking at acquisition which will bring a strategic fitment, besides increasing our pan-India presence.

“For this year, we will be increasing the number of stores from 620 to 1,200 by the end of this year,” said Mr Sanjeev Mahajan, CEO, HotSpot.

With Cellucom’s acquisition, HotSpot has got about 120 stores under its umbrella.

HotSpot is part of Spice Televentures, a BK Modi group company, and is a retailer of mobile phones, accessories and services.

Core focus

The company said its core focus will be on total customer offerings.

“It is not just handsets and airtime retailing that we are looking at but also focusing on a lot of value added services including accessories and portable music devices including iPods,” Mr Mahajan said.

On whether slowdown had affected sales, he said margins for all retailers were under pressure.

“There are no upgrades. People are not buying at the same frequency that they used to,” he added.

HotSpot also plans to expand its outlets in rural areas. “Tier-III cities and towns will be our next drivers of growth,” he added.

Hotspot in North India and particulary in delhi is very strong. Sanjeev Mahajan CEO hotspot was under pressure to be on same name as group brand SPICE. However so far sanjeev mahajan could succeed in it. Here it is interesting to tell that BK Modi group has also Spice Handsets in market. They are selling really good nos. and now number 5 mobile brand in India. Sajeev was reluctant to change name to spice retail as it could give mindset to consumer that it is exclusive store of spice telecom. He has been succeed in his efforts has ‘Hotspot’ is now known as ‘Spice Hotspot’.

Re-branding has not been done over night, it has been done in phases so that consumer doesnt see ‘closed’ all over at same time. 3-4 stores in one area has been closed at a time and renovation and re-branding is done. Business has no impact on shifting to new brand name. In fact in some quarters business has been increases.

BK modi wanted to bring all group companies under umbrella ‘spice’. He has done that with other companies like in BPO and VAS. With hostpot rebranded as Spice Hotspot now Spice will have more visibility in market.

The mobile store so far has been biggest retailer in India.  It has Pan India presence from Kashmir to Kerala and Gujrat to Guwahati. It has currently 1300 touch point. Second in the list is Hotspot spice. They are on expansion mode and diverged to franchise model for expansion. company own company operated store are pain to operate on little margin. In mobile industry turn over is high while margins shrink to 2-3%. Hotspot has been first to innovate franchise model and run it successful. after testing prototype they are gunning on it. In Rajasthan itself they have made 300 franchise.  Plan for them is to have 5000 touch point by 2012.

The mobile store as said biggest mobile retail chain has not come with something conclusive. It has been reported that they are in pipeline to purchase a biggy in ‘One Mobile’. so when Hotspot is banking on franchise to expand its net ‘The mobile store’ is looking for acquisition and merger. It will be interesting to see how economy revive will boost mobile retailing and particularly these two giants.