The Ravi Jaipuria group firm will invest Rs 100 crore, setting up 150 stores over five years.
"India is a focus area for Walt Disney and we will be looking at licensing agreements to stimulate demand for Disney characters' merchandise. We are also working towards producing Disney's first Indian film," said Rajat Jain, managing director, The Walt Disney Company (India). He, however, declined to give details of the investment lined up.
The company is also looking at fast moving consumer goods as another area for licensing of merchandise, he said.
As part of its focus on India, the international cartoon and film production company had acquired local channel Hungama and a stake in UTV for $45 million. "That made us the biggest player in the kids entertainment space in India, giving us more than half of the market," said Jain.
Walt Disney has 55 licence agreements in India in the areas of apparel (Disney jeans), toys, games, back-to-school products and publishing. However, But these will be the first set of speciality stores which will be exclusively selling the company's branded greeting cards, stationary, arts and party products.
While the first five stores will come up in Mumbai, Delhi and the National Capital Region by the end of this fiscal, a total of 150 Disney Artist stores will be set up in India by 2011.
The entire investment would be borne by RJ Corp while it will be paying a licence fee to Walt Disney (India), said RJ Corp Chairman Ravi Jaipuria.
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