Disney is soon coming to the malls near you

World’s largest entertainment company Disney is looking forward to opening stores in India, for which it is in talks with India's DLF Brands. The company wants to cash in on the growing demand for branded kids clothing and accessories in the country.

The stores will be operated on a licensing and franchisee basis, four senior industry executives told ET.

Reports also say that Disney plans to open both large format flagship stores of 10,000 square feet and the average 1,000 sq ft of space, from where it would be easy to largely focus on apparel and toys. The bigger stores will have similar designs as its global designs, which were originally developed by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs when he had become the largest shareholder of the company.

Timmy Sarna, DLF Brands CEO, told ET that it already had a licensing deal with Walt Disney to sell children's clothing in India but it was done through retail formats that were part of the group such as Mothercare.

"DLF Brands will initially open around 50 Disney stores in the first phase and is already scouting for locations. Walt Disney Co could also explore owning or turning the licensee agreement into a joint venture with DLF depending on the performance," said one of the executives aware of the matter.

On the international scale, Disney is the largest retail character licensor with $45 billion in retail sales. In India itself, it sells 3,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) of popular characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in nearly a million stores as well as via ecommerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart.

Image source