Women Apparel Market Showing Good Traction

Apparel, Footwear, Fashion

Women Apparel Market Showing Good Traction

The women's apparel market in India is gaining momentum and is currently showing a faster rate of growth as compared to its male counterpart. The women's apparel market is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 10% during the period FY2017-2025 and is expected to reach $42 billion by FY2025 from the present over $19 billion. An increase in the number of working women; a shift towards aspiration rather than need based buying and design innovations that appeal to Indian sensibilities and emergence of home grown national brands in a market where Indian wear contributes 71%, are some of the reasons cited for this growth trajectory.

Of the total apparel market (including men's, women's and children's), Indian wear accounts for around 30% or $15.27 billion in FY2017 and western wear accounts for the balance 70% of the market. However, the share of Indian wear is very different between men's wear and women's wear.

In the men's segment, Indian wear accounts for a 6.6% share of the $21.2 billion market, whereas, in the women's segment, Indian wear holds a significantly larger share of 70.6% or $13.7 billion of the total market of $19.3 billion in FY2017. Consequently, women's Indian wear accounts for around 90% share of the total Indian wear market in India. The disproportionate size of Indian wear for women is attributable to the distinct positioning of Indian wear for women compared to that of men in India. For Indian women, Indian and ethnic fashion is a mainstream daily wear use requirement (in addition to strong occasion wear utility), whereas for men it is currently largely restricted to occasion wear alone i.e. weddings and festivals. Ethnic wear categories have maintained salience across geographies as well as across consumer segments of varying socio-economic strata, age groups and lifestyles, in spite of the increasing penetration of western wear.

The women's ethnic wear market in India stands at $6.5 billion for the FY 2017, which is around 47% of the women's Indian wear market, and is projected to reach $9.5 billion by FY2020, growing at a CAGR of around 14%.

As of FY2017, the share of organized retail in women's ethnic wear was 22%, but it is projected to account for around 33% by FY 2020, growing at a CAGR of around 29.4%. This growth of organised retail in women's ethnic wear will be around three times that of unorganized retail.

The branded ethnic wear market, valued at $1.5 billion for FY 2017, is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 30% till FY2020. This implies that the branded segment is growing four times faster than that of the unbranded ethnic wear market, which is projected to grow at 7%. The branded ethnic wear market is expected to reach $3.4 billion by the FY 2020, by which time it will constitute 35% of the women's ethnic wear market.

The ethnic wear segment in India tends to be dominated by certain large national players like TCNS (Brands: W, Aurelia and Wishful), BIBA, Global Desi and Fabindia and a few regional players like Neeru's and Soch. Due to its popularity and traction amongst consumers across socio-economic levels, ethnic wear has seen penetration of brands across a wide spectrum ranging from value to luxury.

The overall apparel and accessories market in India was estimated to be $56.1 billion in FY2017 and is expected to reach $77.2 billion by FY2020, growing at a CAGR of 11.3%. Of this, the apparel segment was estimated to be $50.9 billion in FY2017 and is likely to grow at a CAGR of 9% between FY 2017 and FY 2020 to reach $65.8 billion, on the back of factors such as greater purchasing power; in turn driving growth in primary discretionary spends; better access & availability of products; higher brand consciousness; increasing urbanization and increasing digitization.

The organized apparel market in India is likely to grow from $12.2 billion in FY017 to $ 21.7 billion in FY2020 at a CAGR of 21%. The share of organized retail in the apparel segment has increased from 14% in FY2007 to 24% in FY2017 and is likely to constitute 33% in FY 2020. Over the past 10 years, organised retail has not only captured new and incremental demand, but has also succeeded in moving demand away from unorganized retail.