For the past one decade, organized retailing in India has spread its wings in most of the sectors—first venturing into garment, FMCG, Music, followed by high-profile corporates venturing into grocery retailing. The outlets like Spencer's, C3 and Nilgiris are fast becoming household names. The common man in India now is enjoying the shopping experience similar to any consumer in the west. Now that most of the sectors have been explored, large corporates have lately ventured into the pharma sector and thus the pharma retailing is also facing stiff competition from the organized sector.
The pharmaceutical retail market in India is estimated to be of $6 bn and the market is gearing up for major changes in the near future. The first to get affected will be the neighborhood chemists who sell the basic prescription drugs and non-prescription drugs. Some studies have claimed that 15% of the 51 lakh retail stores across the country are chemists, who indulge in pharmaceutical retailing. As rightly quoted by Vikas Bali, Principal, AT Kearney (India) Ltd., "Pharma retailing will follow the trend of becoming more organized and corporatized as is seen in other retailing formats (food, apparel etc.)".
The value of the pharma market in India is estimated to be about Rs. 30, 000-Rs. 35, 000 cr. The organized chains account for only about 5-6% of this value. Trade s say that organized retail pharmacies in India will most probably generate a business of about 10 to 20% of the Indian retail drug market in a few years. |
