Rupa Success Story: Hosiery Manufacturing Company

Three brothers P R Agarwal, G P Agarwal, and K B Agarwal were watching their father selling undergarments in a simple shop since childhood. But then perhaps, they would not have thought that the son of the man running the clothing store would together open a company of innerwear.

So let’s know. The Rupa company of the Agarwal brothers opened in 1981 How started in Kolkata and became a brand and reached door to door.

And not only this, in the event of a pandemic like Covid 19, when all the businesses around the world were sinking. This company achieved its highest profit in this time period. And it all started in 1968.

Now since the father owned a clothing store and used to sell innerwear, the three brothers P R Agarwal, G P Agarwal, and K B Agarwal also got interested in the innerwear and hosiery market. And because of this, instead of doing a job, he thought of starting his own textile business.

And in 1968 started a business named Binod Hosiery. Which he used to sell socks and stockings.

After some time he saw that the hosiery market was dominated by some companies like Dora, Asli Heera, and Asli Sona.

Now because there were already discussions about names like gold and diamond in the market, they also thought of giving a similar name to their brand. And named his company “Rupa” in Bengali, “Rupo” or “Rupa” means silver.

His only purpose behind keeping this name was that people should find this name related to the already popular names and also have a different identity of their brand.

At that time the market was very tough as the hosiery stores did not sell any other brand other than Dora.

Rupa first started selling his vests in Patna, Bihar. Because it was a densely populated place and there was a lot of demand for vests here. So it could have been a good market.

Prahlad Rai himself used to go to the general coaches of the train, sometimes he had to sleep in the narrow passage near the toilets of the train.

It was difficult to facilitate the sellers of Hosiery, but Rai made it possible and slowly started making his place in the Rupa market.

After a few years, he started making men’s underwear and women’s innerwear. After this, gradually Rupa started spreading her business to other states as well.

To increase his business, even more, Rupa started inventing. So that they can provide better things to the people, than the old brands they are using. In the 70s, he launched underwear with elastic straps that were different from the then-popular cotton rope strings. And they became quite popular too.

And see today it will be difficult to find such a house in the Indian market where people do not use Rupa’s inner wears.

Today Rupa makes everything from innerwear to thermals for men, women, and kids. In the financial year 2019, Rupa’s total income was Rs 1,222.27 crore.

Rupa’s main focus is to provide good products to people at low cost and hence they not only pay attention to minor finishing of their product but are also constantly trying to innovate it. And his popularity in the market is also the result of this.