Good Morning Dear MMS Reader,
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani is quite adept at aligning his own interests with India's.
His desire to make the country "2G-free" plays to his telco Reliance Jio's advantage. His quest to bridge India's "green energy divide" is another way of future-proofing his oil refining and petrochemicals business.
And now that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making a pitch for made-in-India toys, Ambani seems to be moving in lockstep. It’s learned that Hamleys, the iconic British toys chain Ambani's Reliance Industries bought in 2019, is now experimenting with stocking one of its stores with only made-in-India toys. It’s also aiming to take its sourcing of made-in-India toys from 10-15% of its products to 40-45%. This is part of a series of developments that could potentially alter these pitiful statistics: India's share in the $90 billion global toy market is a meagre 1.9%, and it imports 80% of its toys from China. India has approved eight toy manufacturing clusters. The first one, in the southern state of Karnataka, could attract $670 million in investments over the next five years. Among those setting up shop there is Aequs Group, a vendor to brands such as Hasbro of the US.
China's big head start in toy production means it has far lower costs. India is hoping to fix that with sops such as freight subsidy. But even as India doubles down on its efforts to become a toy manufacturer for the world, it still only spends $3 per capita on toys—a tenth of the average for Asia. And that's why VC-backed educational toy startups such as PlayShifu and Skillmatics, even if they find merit in making in India, may not have an immediate future in selling in India VFX Studio
