Muji Opens First Indian Store

Japanese homeware and lifestyle retailer Muji has opened its first store in India, in a joint venture partnership with Reliance Retail. The store is in Mumbai on the third floor at the Palladium Shopping Centre.

The partnership will see the brand open a second store in Bangalore next month at the VR Bengaluru shopping centre with Reliance Retail set to gauge reaction from urban India’s young emerging middle class to these two large units before looking to slowly roll the business out.

Satoru Matsuzaki, president of Ryohin Keikaku, Muji’s parent company, told The Times Of India: “We entered China in 2005 and had only a few stores for the first three or four years. The acceleration happened after a slow start, which is how we will treat the India market as well.”

The Mumbai opening was accompanied by an exhibition and a traditional store opening ceremony that included a Wadaiko drums performance and a sake cask breaking for good luck.