Prada to add 260 stores on demand in Brics, Gulf

Hong Kong: Prada SpA, the Italian fashion company that owns the Miu Miu and Church's brands, plans to add 260 stores in the next three years to tap demand in emerging markets including Brazil, China and Gulf countries.

"We aim to speed up expansion by opening 100 stores this year, 80 stores each in 2013 and 2014 globally," CEO Patrizio Bertelli, whose company opened 75 stores last year, said.

Demand for Prada goods is rising even as China's economic growth slows and Europe's debt crisis weighs on consumer spending, Bertelli said.

The company is bene-fitting from increasingly wealthy Chinese tourists who are fuelling growth in Europe as it also targets the Middle East, he said.

"We are expanding in Morocco, Istanbul, Beirut, Dubai and Qatar," Bertelli said in an interview. "Brazil is also a big market we're looking at."

The expansion would increase the number of Prada outlets to 674 by adding to the 388 directly operated stores and 26 franchises it had as of January.

Sales of discretionary goods in China will grow by a compounded annual rate of 13.4 per cent between 2010 and 2020, as shoppers in the world's second-largest economy become richer, McKinsey & Co said in a report in March. Such growth attracts Prada, as well as Paul Smith Ltd and Michael Kors Holdings Ltd, to set up shops in the most populous nation.

Shares of the company, whose $2.5 billion (Dh9.18 billion) initial public offering was Hong Kong's biggest in 2011, have gained 30 per cent this year.

The company expects the sales contribution of the Asia-Pacific region to rise to 40 per cent in 2012 and 2013, from 35 per cent last year and plans to open 12 to 15 new stores in China this year.