With the likes of global brands like Adidas, Reebok and Puma as competitors, Black Panther, the home-grown sports brand from India is going out blazing out with all guns in order to seize a sizeable pie of the Indian sports apparel industry. The Black Panther brand is owned by the Mumbai-based Juneja Global, which currently operates five exclusive brand outlets (EBOs) and is also available in most of the big time retailers in India like, Pantaloons, Globus, Shoppers top, Central etc. The brand also intends to add five more EBOs to the existing five by the end of this year and five more by May 2011, taking the EBO store count to 15, which are likely to come up in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Noida. Amongst the existing stores, three are in Mumbai and two in Indore. Black Panther incidentally is also available in 1,200 outlets in India currently and the figure will be hiked up in a big way by next year. It is also available through Hyper-markets in the lucrative countries of the Gulf region like the United Arab Emirates ((UAE). Divulging details of the expansion plans to fibre2fashion, Ms Shakshi Juneja, Business Development Manager (BDM), Juneja Global said, “Last year we introduced swimwear, which has received very good response from the market.” She added by saying, “Similarly we are hoping for a fantastic response to our kids-sportswear range, which we are looking to launch sometime in August this year. From t-shirts to track pants, shorts, tracksuits, performance wear, all in all a complete solution to kids-sportswear”. When asked about new category launches in the near future, she replied by saying, “Besides the kids-sportswear launch, we are also seriously looking at the footwear market. Currently we are doing our homework, in conducting detailed market research”. She informed, “Coming from a very cautious working background, we do take our time when introducing new product lines/launches because for us it’s not simply about creating a presence or filling up a gap, its everything to do with being successful at it at all costs.”