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Summary: A decade ago, VIP Industries had the stronger brands, wider distribution and much larger revenue base. Today, Safari is the bigger and more profitable business, while VIP is trying to simplify its operations and rebuild its execution.
Safari and VIP are among India's biggest luggage brands. But a decade ago, VIP was the larger player, earning nearly Rs 1,192 crore in revenue in FY16, compared with Safari’s just Rs 271 crore. Reason? VIP had stronger brands, fatter margins and wider distribution channels.
However, 10 years later, the picture has flipped. In FY26, Safari’s revenue stood at Rs 2,047 crore, while VIP earned Rs 1,858 crore. What’s more, Safari had an operating margin of around 13 per cent, while VIP reported a loss after an aggressive inventory clean-up.
Both companies faced the same forces: rising travel, the shift from unbranded to branded luggage and a rapid move from soft to hard suitcases. Neither missed the hard-luggage trend. What separated them was how fast each company’s management moved, how well each handled its own complexity and how disciplined each stayed on inventory and capital.
Where the numbers stand
Similar revenue, very different quality of earnings
| Metric | Safari Industries | VIP Industries |
|---|---|---|
| FY26 revenue (Rs crore) | 2,047 | 1,858 |
| 5-year revenue CAGR (FY21-26, %) | 44 | 25 |
| FY26 net profit/loss (Rs crore) | 168 | −338 |
| FY26 operating margin (%) | 13 | −13 |
| 5-year average ROCE (FY22-26, %) | 24 | 4 |
| FY26 inventory days | 116 | 150 |
| FY26 total borrowings (Rs crore) | 117 | 738 |
How Safari pushed ahead
In 2011, Sudhir Jatia bought a small, financially weak Safari, when revenue stood at just Rs 67 crore. His first goal was relevance, not profit. Management rebuilt dealer relationships and chased volume, taking revenue to Rs 271 crore by FY16.
Safari's product calls showed the trait that would define it: the company changed with the market instead of betting on one trend. Hard suitcases dominated its sales when Jatia arrived; the market then moved to soft luggage, and Safari moved with it. A few years later, demand swung back to lighter, hard polycarbonate cases.
Safari swung back too.
The company also repaired its balance sheet early. It wrote off old inventory, retired outdated equipment and raised fresh equity, then added manufacturing capacity in stages, only after existing capacity filled up. It aimed at the value end of the branded market, the consumer buying a first branded suitcase, rather than fighting Samsonite for premium buyers. Between FY15 and FY20, Safari's revenue grew about 27 per cent a year against VIP's 11 per cent.
Why did VIP stop winning?
VIP ran a genuinely strong business through most of the 2010s. Under Radhika Piramal, it rebuilt an ageing brand portfolio: Skybags for younger buyers, Aristocrat and Alfa for value, Caprese for handbags, Carlton for the premium end. Revenue rose from Rs 1,017 crore to Rs 1,714 crore between FY15 and FY20, and operating margin improved from 8 per cent to 17 per cent, ahead of Safari's 11 per cent that year.
The trouble started after Covid, when consumers rushed toward hard luggage, e-commerce grew fast and design-led new entrants arrived. VIP initially recovered well, as revenue jumped from Rs 1,290 crore in FY22 to Rs 2,082 crore in FY23.
But FY24 brought a warning. Although revenue kept rising, operating margin collapsed from 15 per cent to 9 per cent. VIP's inventory days, how long stock sat unsold before reaching a customer, hit roughly 325, against Safari's 124.
By VIP's own account, the company had multiple brands chasing overlapping customers, with no clear rule for which brand should sell what, to whom, through which channel. Warehousing had fragmented. Its Bangladesh factory ran under capacity.
Margins tell the rest of the story. VIP still led Safari as late as FY23, 15 per cent to 16 per cent. Then Safari reached 18 per cent in FY24 while VIP fell to 9 per cent, and the gap widened again in FY25: Safari at 13 per cent, VIP at about 4 per cent. FY26 revenue at VIP fell roughly 15 per cent, with a substantial operating loss, though new management deliberately front-loaded some of that pain through inventory write-downs and dealer support.
Now the two have swapped problems
Safari is adding the complexity it once avoided. It is building a brand ladder: the main Safari brand for the mass market, Safari Select for a premium step-up, Urban Jungle for younger, design-led buyers, and a coming Carlton launch at the super-premium end. Each label needs its own stores, marketing and design language, and Safari's own margin already shows the strain, down from 18 per cent in FY24 to around 13 per cent in FY25 and FY26, as advertising spend and online price competition have risen.
VIP is doing the opposite: removing the complexity it built up. Channel inventory has fallen from more than 90 days to below 60. The company plans to cut its SKU count, the number of distinct product codes it carries, by 25 to 30 per cent, while launching more than 65 new products. It is also consolidating warehouses and logistics vendors and increasing use of its Bangladesh factory.
Yet, none of that guarantees VIP wins customers back. Cutting inventory sits within management's control; market share does not. The real test is secondary sales, what a dealer actually sells to a shopper, rather than headline dispatches, what the company merely ships to the dealer. If secondary sales pick up without heavy discounting, the turnaround becomes real.
The tough question
Safari is the stronger business today, built on a decade of genuine adaptation rather than one post-Covid boom. Its open question is whether a brand built on mass-market discipline can stretch into premium categories without losing the margins that got it here.
VIP's question is more basic: Can a company that let complexity outrun its execution simplify itself fast enough to matter again?
Also read: vis-a-vis: Battle of the bags
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