Indian Retail News

SINGAPORE TFWA 2025

Bringing you on the ground incisive reports from India since 2007 from the Indian duty free, on foods, exhibitions & conferences and on the retail industry

The visitor pre-registration was till 3 April 2025 for the 2025 TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition and Conference scheduled to take place in Singapore. The venue for the Conference & Exhibition is at Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre from 11 to15 May 2025.

The important players in the travel retail and Duty free are expected to attend. Including Mondelez, Pernod Ricard, Beam Suntory, Hermes, Shiseido, Chanel Paul & Shark and several others. Major players in the tax- and duty-free industry will be represented and will conduct meeting with retailers, distributors, agents starting Monday to Thursday. Changi Airport Group is the official host on this year’s TFWA Asia Pacific Conference, with active support of the City of Singapore and the Singapore Exhibition & Convention Bureau

Philippe Margueritte, TFWA President mentions that throughout the history of TFWA has prided itself on consistently striving to offer the best and most valuable experience possible to its members and visitors. The new look will bring to Singapore TFWA a demonstration of the commitment to ensuring that we offer our industry the finest business environments and dedication to adapting to an ever-changing future.

Is it curtains for the Indian Duty Free?

The liquor in the Indian corners a substantive portion of sales at International arrivals and departures. In a recent move the Indian Government has reduced drastically the import duty of Scotch whisky from a present 150 % to 75 % as a mutual reduction in import duties between UK and India. This reduction is the first step in the 3-year old negotiations in the India-UK FTA where the duties will be gradually reduced to 40% in the next 10 years. There has been a mixed reaction from importers and local producers of Indian whisky. The question remains, will the local State governments wiling to pass on the benefits without adding local taxes and will the Scotch whisky producers sell at a lower price in a captive market?

Merchants Chamber

Merchants Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Kolkata held their Retail & Marketing Conclave on 3 March 2025 at Taj Bengal, Kolkata, Some of the leading lights in the Indian Retail Industry including Bijoy Kurian, Chairman, Retailers Association of India. Damodar Mall, CEO Grocery Retail, Reliance, Sumant Bhargavan, Director, ITC, Sagar Daryani, Founder, WOW Momo Foods, Avjit Mitra, fmr CEO&MD , Croma, Anjan Kundu, Head, Supply Chain Management, Bata

Introducing the Indian retail industry was Manish Gousaria, Chairman, Retail & Marketing, MCCI with the theme of the Conclave “New era in Retail and Marketing: Creating New business models”. President Gousaria mentioned India had 900 m mobile users of which 270 m were online shoppers and 15 m were customers with kirana stores, super markets. It was not only major metros who were into online shopping, the II Tier cities were also using online for purchases. In rural markets kirana stores offered 10% credit to stay competitive. The total retail market in India was Rs 18,00, 00, 000 crores.

Bijou Kurian, Chairman, Retail Association of India said here the grocery items made up of 45 % of sales in the retail market and 64% of sales came from rural areas. The population of just 2 States in India, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were equal to the entire population of the US. Kurian broke up the retail market into seasonal sales, internet availability, religion, attitude, language and income diversity. For instance there was a wide diversity between states, the average annual income in Bihar was $800 and in Goa the average income was $ 8,000 which was about ten times more than Bihar. In general Indian retail market had low per capita income with traditional commerce occupying 72 % the balance 28% was taken up by quick commerce, e commerce, news channels and instagram. Store brands were strong in the North and West and high value and premium brandswere growing faster than the rest.

E commerce was more widespread in transport providers like Rapido (60 m users) and food delivery companies like Zomato ( 40 m users) and except China and Korea the rest of the world used e commerce only 25 %. The Conference was covered by Indian Retail News, com on the invitation of Mr Roy Dy Director General, Merchants Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kolkata

Increase in International Traffic

International travel to and fro from India is coming back to pre-covid levels. In2023 the international air traffic was 65 m. according to OAG Indian airports like Delhi were being used more and more as hubs. This was in direct contrast to Middle Eastern hubs losing traffic of 1m comprising of mostly Indian traffic .In April 2024 Indian travel was to five major destinations - UAE, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Qatar in that order. With Indian carriers like Air India and Indigo took a major lead in cornering international air traffic with Air India with 20%, Indigo with 17% and Emirates at 7%.

Foreign Arrivals Awaited

Outbound travel has gone by leaps and bounds due to several factors a major reason being it is cheaper to travel to destinations like Thailand than in India, comparatively hotels are cheaper and due to competition the international flights are also less costly. Hotels in India charge more as the government levies high taxes, flights are costly as the Indian aviation market is controlled by a duopoly – Indigo and Air India.

SINGAPORE TFWA 2025

Is it curtains for the Indian Duty Free?

Merchants Chamber

Increase in International Traffic

Foreign Arrivals Awaited

CONTACT US