Crocus Group to open new shops in Azerbaijan

The company plans to open a second mall in the capital and others in St. Petersburg and the southern city of Krasnodar, Commercial Director Emin Agalarov said in an interview.

Stores run by Crocus sell goods under about 150 brands including Calvin Klein and JLo by Jennifer Lopez, and the company is in talks to add more by franchising, according to Agalarov.

Crocus will open a JLo boutique in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku this year and also a home-improvement superstore called Tvoi Dom, Russian for "Your House," he said.

Crocus expects sales to rise at least 25% this year from about $500 million in 2006, according to Agalarov.

Revenue from luxury goods may increase by about a fifth, the same pace as last year, he said. "These indicators apply not just to us, but to our competitors also," Agalarov said of the luxury-goods market at the press conference. "These numbers can only keep rising in Moscow and Russia."

Luxury-goods selling space in Moscow may rise to about 1 million square meters (10.8 million square feet) in the next two to three years from between 100,000 and 150,000 square meters now, according to Agalarov.

The city has 2 million square meters of total selling space, about half as much per capita as in Europe, he said at the press conference. More shopping malls will open in coming years, rather than standalone boutiques, because of surging rents, Agalarov said. Bloomberg

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