This is a story of an underwear company whose share price grew almost 12,500% in a span of 11 years. In 2007, Page Industries (Jockey India) was trading at a level of Rs. 270/share touched a price level of Rs. 34,651/share on 24 August 2018. So How did it made this?
Let us go back to ’90s
To know the story let us go back to 90s where there is no strong brand for undergarments in India. The story actually started in the Philippines where Genomal Verhomal had a textile business with the name of V Lilaram & Co. He used to import textiles and along with that, he imported Jockey garments for the U.S military personal who were stationed in Phillippines.
It was the time when Jockey is trying to enter India. Being impressed by the Genomal Verhomal business in the Philippines, Jockey offered the manufacturing and distribution license to Genomal. This is how Jockey India started.
Time to enter India
Later Genomal, using Marg consultancy service conducted the market research of Indian Undergarment segment in India. During that time there were very fewer designs and colour options in undergarments. Companies like Dolar, Rupa, Lux were the ones manufacturing them for the mass market of India. No company was concentrating on the premium segment of the market. That is where Jockey jumps in. The main goal is to reach out to the larger market with a premium branding, good packing and more designs.
Hurdles
But in the beginning, the company faced problems in finding good quality fabric and also distributers, retailers. Not only these the main competitors during that time were TTK Tantex and Associated Apparels who have the market revenue of around 100 crores.
These two companies bankrupted because of labour issues. So, Page Industries (Jockey India) concentrated more on labour issues by providing a good working culture. After solving all these problems Page Industries started expanding its presence all over the country by opening retail stores, sales through online, establishing stores in malls.
During the early periods, the company didn’t saw much growth in sales due to the high price tag. But time changed, with the increase in the purchasing power of the middle-class people and improvement in the consumer sector drove the sales of the products.
After IPO
Finally, in the year 2007 Page Industries came into public by launching its IPO. From there, there is looking back for the company. As of September 2017, the brand has 384 Exclusive Brand Outlets across India with 286 stores on high streets and 98 stores in shopping malls with heavy footfalls.
The above-shown sales growth became possible because of good brand building, making products for all groups of the society, learning lessons from bankrupt companies during its period, by making Jockey products available from a local retail store to big malls.
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