India: H&M, Uniqlo postpone India entry to 2015

India: H&M, Uniqlo postpone India entry to 2015

Fashion giants H&M and Uniqlo have decided to put-off their plans for opening stores in India, for 2015, one year after the general elections. The weakening of rupee has had an impact on their decision-making, which further fell to 65.56 against a dollar on Thursday.

The past four months saw the rupee decline and constant decrease of the rupee in the past few weeks have forced the global fashion giants to delay the opening of their first stores in India. H&M and Uniqlo remain committed to India's potential, but the sliding rupee has affected their plans for an immediate entry.

Stockholm-based H&M, the world's second-biggest clothing retailer had sought permission from India's government in April 2013 to invest Euro 100 million (US$ 131 million) to open 50 stores.Japanese brand Uniqlo had blocked space for the initial set of storesin DLF Ltd’s 1.8 million sq. ft mall in New Delhi.

Uniqlo, which is expected to enter India through a joint venture with Arvind Brands ,has begun to let go of locations it had blocked for store openings and Swedish brand H&M is identifying store locations that will only be available by 2016.