The Government of India may be dithering on the greenlighting FDI in multi-brand retail, much to the disappointment of players like Wal-Mart and Tesco, but the world appears to be bullish about India's retail sector.

An incisive article on the subject by Dr Udai Lal Pai in InvestorIdeas.com quotes Mike Moriarty, AT Kearney's Vice-President for Consumer Industries and Retail Practice, as saying that "the Indian retail market is gradually but surely opening up, while China's market becomes increasingly saturated." He adds: " India is at the peak of attractiveness for retailers right now, with a US$350 billion retail market expected to grow 13% this year." India's top five retailers together still account for less than 2% of the organised retail market.

By the end of 2010, organised retail business in India is expected to emerge as a US$300 billion industry. In the past five years, the sector's cumulative growth has been 133%, says a study by McKinsey and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), on the other hand, has predicted that the retail sector in India may grow at the rate of 7% by 2010-11 to enlarge its market share to $280 billion from its present estimated level of $200 billion. An Assocham analysis on the Future of Retail Industry in India pointed out that the size of organised retail alone would almost triple in the next 4-5 years and touch US$17 billion, against its present size of approximately US$6 billion.

A McKinsey study points out India's market for consumer goods could reach a whopping US$400 billion by 2010 - making it one of the five largest in the world. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Country Briefing on India, 2005, estimates the retail market in India will grow from $394 billion in 2005 to $608.9 billion in 2009.

Comments delWine's Editor: These figures may be wildly different, but they point in one direction. The world expects much from India's retail market. But will India deliver the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

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