JOYALUKKAS JEWELLERY TO OPEN 30 NEW STORES THIS YEAR IN INDIA AND OVERSEAS MARKETS

1st March 2023

Joyalukkas Jewellery has announced plans to open 30 new stores this year, with an equal number being established in new overseas markets and India. The company will focus on expanding to other locations in the Gulf, such as Al Ain, Saudi Arabia and Oman, as well as Singapore. Of the new stores, 15 will be located in India. Despite diversifying into other areas such as financial services, Joyalukkas’ core business remains gold, and the Chairman has shown an interest in building a gold-standard residential tower in Dubai, which could serve as a benchmark for luxury living.

Joyalukkas Jewellery plans to open 30 stores this year, split evenly between those in new overseas markets and in India, according to the Chairman. “We need to be extremely careful with new store locations – having more than 2 within the same neighbourhood or a few miles of one other won’t make sense any longer,” said Mr. Joy Alukkas, the founder of the Group that launched its first gold store in the UAE in 1988. “So, rather than a few more stores in Dubai – where we already have our highest number – we could do that in Al Ain, Saudi Arabia or Oman. “We opened recently in the US and Singapore is a good place to be with our expansion this year.”

Expansion in India

Mr. Joy Alukkas made a point of saying that the Group’s India operations will host an additional 15 stores this year. “My Group is a 100 per cent family-owned enterprise – there is no public shareholder or private equity involved,” he added. “That places extra responsibility on where we spend available funds. It means any capex we allocate needs to be justified – the Group has a 9,000 strong workforce, many of whom have been with us for years. We carry heavy responsibilities.”

To commemorate 35 years of operations in the UAE, Joyalukkas Group illuminated the exterior of Burj Khalifa

On February 28, Joyalukkas Group lit up the façade of Burj Khalifa to mark the 35th year of operations in the UAE, and which then set the base for expansion in some of the other Gulf markets and overseas. More recently, it ventured into financial services through a remittance arm.

But gold is where the core of the business rests, and Mr. Joy Alukkas sees nothing to change that. “Our India venture has retail outlets in ethnic wear (under the Jolly Silks banner), but that’s only meant for that market,” the Chairman added. “It was a passion project that I took on, nothing more.” There is however, one venture that interests him quite a bit – building a gold-standard residential tower in Dubai. “One in Dubai, and possibly two more like those in Trichur, my hometown, and Kochi,” Mr. Joy Alukkas added. “It’s about creating a super-luxury benchmark in a limited number of apartments within the tower.

“Sort of giving a jeweller’s touch to a real estate project. Let’s see where this hopes to build one leads.”