Essar to expand steel retail chain

Widens product range to cater to fabricators

Girish Rao (right), CEO, Essar Hypermart and Ganesh Pai, General Manager, Corporate Communications, at a press conference, in Chennai on Tuesday. Photo: Bijoy Ghosh

Essar Hypermart, the retail chain for steel products of Essar Steel, is planning to increase its outlets.

Addressing presspersons here on Tuesday, Girish Rao, CEO, Essar Hypermart said the plan was to reach 776 outlets by March next year from the present 520. He said hypermart was a pioneering initiative by Essar Steel to make steel available to end users close to the user point.

The steel retail chain was catering to the customers ranging from small manufacturers, local fabricators and general engineering firms to large corporations and construction companies.

The hypermart was offering hot rolled products, chequered plates, shot blasted plates and cold rolled coils and sheets. To widen its portfolio, the retail chain had launched colour coated sheets and coils to meet the rising demand of the fast growing high value roofing segment. Besides it had launched wider plate mill to cater to the special needs of heavy fabrications segment. The hypermart accounted for 25 per cent of Essar Steel's annual revenue, Mr. Rao said.

Outlets in Tamil Nadu

In Tamil Nadu and Puducherry the retail chain had 44 outlets and this would be increased to 58 by March 2011, Mr. Girish Rao said.

The distribution model is backed by service centre facilities and supply chain management of Essar Steel.