IMPRESSIONS from a Cross-section

Zeven's founders, tennis star Mahesh Bhupati and Hemchandra Javeri, started this journey with a vision of catalysing 100 million Indians to move out and play. They felt strongly about the fact that India can be a sporting nation if all of us get sports back into our system. This vision led to the creation of Zeven, a sports brand with the mission of transforming sports in India. Zeven wants to equip Indians not only with information on where and how to play but also provide the right apparel and footwear of international quality at affordable prices.

The sports market in India has seen a growing upward trend over the last couple of years. With the consistent growth in awareness about fitness and increased participation of women across age groups, there has been substantial increase in demand of sports footwear and apparel across price bands.

The global sports apparel market, as per a report by Allied Market Research, is expected to grow to US$ 184 billion by 2020, with a CAGR of 4.3 per cent during the forecast period of 2015-2020. Although the North American market has traditionally been the largest consumer of sports apparel, as per the report, Asia-Pacific is slated to take that over to lead revenue generation by 2020.

A 70 per cent rise in the income level is expected by 2020 with over 100 million more youth entering the workforce. This is according to a study, Retail transformation: Changing Your Performance Trajectory conducted by industry lobby Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group. These factors and the expected growth in disposable personal income in India will help fuel the market growth for sports apparel industry.

Zeven is creating a whole new market by meeting the unmet needs of Indians. For too long, Indians have been given products by multinationals that are too expensive, not suited to Indian weather or terrain and certainly products that do not have the right offerings for women or the local players have offered poor quality and styling. The Zeven core is performance sports apparel designed specifically for the Indian body type, weather conditions and terrain. Zeven's quality product offerings at affordable prices have worked exceptionally well.

We have a large sports-inspired and active lifestyle product range. We will continue to build on this and provide more options for customers to pick from. We have recently launched our first exclusive brand store in Bangalore and plan to expand our footprint by launching more stores across regions. With Zeven's mission to get a billion Indians to take up sport and the positive response that we are getting from consumers, we see an encouraging future.

The year 2017 has a lot in store for Zeven, in terms of increased reach, product launches and expansion across territories. This year, we will be building our portfolio and will be working on strengthening our presence in the sports industry.

Our target is to achieve revenues of Rs 15 to 20 crore in this fiscal. We would like to double our business the next year.