Infiniti Retail chairman R.K. Krishna Kumar (right) with managing director Ajit Joshi in Mumbai on Wednesday. A Telegraph picture

Mumbai, Sept. 2: Croma — the Tata group’s chain of megastores selling consumer electronics goods — today announced its plans to debut in Calcutta, a day after chairman Ratan Tata said the group was committed to Bengal, despite Singur.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Ajit Joshi, managing director and CEO of Infiniti Retail Ltd (promoters of Croma), said, “We plan to be in Calcutta in the next fiscal. Calcutta is expanding very fast and we see great potential for Croma in the city.”

Croma will launch many stores in Calcutta and also set up a distribution arm under the Woolworths umbrella. Woolworths, an Australian retail giant, has entered into a technical and sourcing agreement with Infiniti Retail.

“Our strategy is to saturate a city once we set up shop. It’s basically a hub and spoke model where we set up a distribution centre and put up multiple retail stores. The Taj group of hotels is a great example of this strategy where the group has more than one property in some cities,” added Joshi.

He, however, did not disclose the number of Croma stores planned for Calcutta.

At present, Croma is present in 11 locations, including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Surat and Baroda, and the company is now planning a limited entry in some cities.

Croma stores have two formats — the megastores spread over an area of up to 20,000 square feet and a smaller version — called Croma Zip stores — that focuses on digital categories such as television sets, computers and mobiles.

Croma launched operations in October 2006 and expects to touch a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal. In 2008, the chain posted a turnover of Rs 657 crore. It hopes to have 52 stores by March 31, 2010, from 31 now. Infiniti envisages Croma to become a 100-store chain with a turnover of Rs 3,000 crore by 2012.

Besides focusing on the topline, the retailer also expects to be profitable shortly. “We expect to break even in the next fiscal,” said Infiniti Retail chairman R.K. Krishna Kumar.

Croma’s range of private label products which may be cheaper by 10 to 15 per cent in certain categories compared with Korean brands include products such as wine coolers, split air conditioners, blenders, kettles, laptops and vacuum cleaners.