Lotto India to unveil cricket gear

Lotto India, which had extended its agreement with Sports Lifestyle for the next 15 years, last year, is planning to venture into the cricket apparel, accessories and equipment segment by unveiling a new product range, starting with India.

Lotto, which has till now focused on other sports like football and tennis, now plans to outsource production of apparels and accessories like pads and gloves and equipments such as helmets and bats.

Lotto India is a subsidiary of Italy based – Lotto and currently has about 50 exclusive stores, which are proposed to be ramped up to 200 in the next three years.

Lotto was a popular sportswear brand in the country during 1990's, but went missing for almost 10 years before making a re-entry into the Indian terrain. Lotto India has also recently signed a sponsorship agreement with the Kochi IPL team.

Informing fibre2fashion about the proposed foray, Lotto India Managing Director – Mr Lalit Kishore said, “Internationally Lotto is known for the games of soccer and tennis, with major associations in the past with the likes of John David Newcombe, Martina Navratilova, Boris Becker while present associations with Robin Soderling, David Ferrer, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Francesca Schiavone, Tamira Paszek to name a few”.

He noted, “In India though we realized that cricket is a religion and this game is the best way to connect with Indian consumers, hence we decided to associate with the IPL Kochi Team. Accentuating the efforts further we plan to launch a cricket equipment range in the Indian market.

“It is the cricket season right now and with World Cup and IPL being played back to back in the subcontinent, this is an opportune moment and the place for us to get into cricket gears. Hence India will be the first market globally that will see the launch of this new product line”, he added by saying.

Revealing details about the product range he said, “We would be manufacturing a representative line across cricketing footwear, apparel and accessories, which would hit the stores in six months time. Like most of the global brands, Lotto does not manufacture anything on its own and almost the entire product line is contract manufactured”.

“Likewise in India and for us almost 50% of our products are domestically manufactured and the balance 50% is imported through Lotto controlled international factories. We are going to follow the same for our cricket range as well”, he wrapped up by saying.