For years, India’s athleisure boom has been fuelled by style, celebrity associations, and global branding. But as fitness becomes a daily habit rather than a trend, consumers are beginning to ask tougher questions – about comfort, durability, climate adaptability, and real performance.
TechnoSport has built its business around answering those questions. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, the brand has evolved into one of India’s leading performance wear players.
Positioned at the intersection of fabric technology and value-led pricing, TechnoSport is now accelerating its offline presence to bring performance closer to the consumer. As it ramps up its national expansion, its stores are being designed to do more than merchandise products. They are spaces where fabric innovation and everyday functionality come together – signalling a long-term commitment to building an accessible, performance-led activewear brand across India.
In an exclusive conversation, Rohit Kulkarni, General Manager and Head – Exclusive Stores, speaks about TechnoSport’s journey of scaling offline retail, building experience-led stores, and taking performance-driven activewear deeper into India.
Retail Expansion with Intent
At a time when many digital-first activewear brands are cautiously stepping into offline retail, TechnoSport is moving in the opposite direction with scale, speed, and clarity of intent. The brand has placed Exclusive Brand Outlets (EBO) at the centre of its growth strategy, using physical retail as both a sales engine and a storytelling platform.
At the heart of TechnoSport’s retail strategy lies an EBO network designed not just to sell products, but to educate shoppers on why fabric technology matters. Currently, the brand operates 29 exclusive outlets pan-India.
“These stores anchor the brand experience, offering a consistent and immersive environment across regions. Alongside this growth, we’ve deepened our presence on major online marketplaces and strategic large-format retail partners, widening consumer reach and strengthening brand visibility. Together, these channels are powering a balanced, high-impact expansion strategy, boosting offline performance while cementing brand’s reputation as one of India’s fastest-growing activewear brands,” says Kulkarni.
Over the next 2–3 years the brand is targeting an accelerated expansion of its EBO network with a target of reaching 300 stores nationwide. Its rollout strategy prioritises high-potential regions across South India, Central India, and the East, where the brand is already seeing strong traction. These clusters will serve as anchors for deeper penetration into tier 1, 2, and emerging fitness-driven markets.
Parallelly, TechnoSport continues strengthening its presence in key tier 2 cities, building on recent openings and sustained consumer uptake. This balanced, pan-India approach ensures both depth and breadth of coverage, positioning offline retail as a major driver of brand growth.
“The overarching objective is clear: expand accessibility, enhance brand visibility, and bring performance-driven activewear closer to a much wider Indian audience,” explains Kulkarni.
“Our revenue growth is anchored in three core levers—a rapidly expanding EBO network, tighter omnichannel integration, and a robust pipeline of performance-driven product innovation. Together, they are driving sustainable year-on-year growth and reinforcing our ambition to build one of India’s most influential activewear brands,” says Kulkarni.
Flagships as Experience Centres
The Hyderabad flagship, at 4,200 sq. ft. is TechnoSport’s largest store yet and strategically serves all three purposes: experience, brand storytelling, and scale. It showcases the brand’s complete product range while bringing its India-first climate-performance innovations to life through immersive, movement-driven experiences.
“Beyond elevating brand perception, it anchors TechnoSport in a key metro market, drives footfall and trial, and sets the benchmark for future large-format EBOs as we scale nationwide. The store also demonstrates how we integrate technology with our transparent holo-flex LED display with purposeful retail design to create memorable consumer touchpoints,” Kulkarni notes.
Format Strategy: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
While flagship stores play a critical role in brand elevation, TechnoSport’s expansion strategy remains firmly grounded in efficiency and reach. The brand is prioritising a mix of mall-based EBOs and high-street locations, tailored to local shopping behaviours. Flagship stores like Hyderabad will be positioned in select metro hubs to serve as brand showcases and experience centers while compact stores ranging from 800-1,500 sq. ft. will help widen reach across tier 2 and 3 cities.
A typical TechnoSport EBO is designed in the 800–1,500 sq. ft. range, which allows the brand to optimise merchandise density. The flagship stores, such as the one in Hyderabad, operate at a significantly larger scale, enabling it to showcase an expanded assortment and create a more immersive, high-engagement retail environment.
“Our EBOs are designed to deliver a seamless and engaging shopping experience, and we’re proud that our stores are achieving a conversion rate of around 83% well above typical retail averages. This reflects the strength of our merchandising, customer engagement, and overall retail strategy, and it reinforces our confidence as we continue to expand the TechnoSport footprint nationwide,” Kulkarni emphasises.
Experience-Led, Technology-Enabled Retail
Technosport is integrating features that elevate both engagement and efficiency, transforming its stores from transaction points to experience destinations.
Key experiential elements include:
- Holoflex LED displays for dynamic product storytelling and visual merchandising (as featured in our Hyderabad flagship with India’s first Holoflex technology)
- Improved product zoning that organises collections by activity type and climate need, making discovery intuitive.
- Enhanced fabric experience areas that help customers explore and feel the difference in our performance technologies like TECHNO COOL+, UPF50+, TechnoDry, and TechnoWarm+ more intuitively.
- Climate-context merchandising that adapts product presentation to regional weather patterns and local fitness behaviors.
Category Expansion Beyond Core Performance
TechnoSport follows a deliberate assortment strategy that balances consistency with freshness. Core essentials account for nearly 60–70% of the assortment, featuring high-performing staples such as polos, training tees, joggers, and shorts that remain available year-round.
The remaining 30–40% is driven by seasonal refreshes, introduced through new colourways, limited-edition drops, and climate-specific launches, allowing the brand to keep the assortment dynamic while also using seasonal capsules as a testing ground for innovation.
As store sizes increase and consumer familiarity grows, TechnoSport is also expanding its category mix. While core performance wear remains central, newer formats are showcasing:
- Activewear that transitions seamlessly from workout to daily wear
- An expanded women’s range, addressing one of the fastest-growing segments in activewear
- Seasonal performance collections, including winter wear powered by TechnoWarm+
- Lifestyle athleisure focused on comfort, versatility, and durability
Despite this expansion, the brand remains anchored in its core philosophy: every category must deliver functional value through fabric innovation at accessible price points.
Value, Innovation and Control
Balancing affordability with performance is often a challenge in activewear, but TechnoSport’s end-to-end control over manufacturing plays a critical role here. By owning and optimising its production processes, the brand is able to innovate consistently while keeping costs in check, ensuring that high-performance apparel remains accessible to a broad Indian consumer base.
Sustainability, too, is embedded into operations through responsible material choices and efficient manufacturing practices, rather than treated as a standalone marketing lever.
Community Engagement
As TechnoSport scales its footprint, the brand is placing equal emphasis on building deep, community-led engagement across every market it enters. The approach is to collaborate in ways that feel authentic and connected to local fitness cultures.
With India’s sportswear and activewear market witnessing accelerated growth, TechnoSport’s stores will play a strategic role in enabling regional partnerships whether that’s with running communities, cycling groups, local tournaments, or city-specific fitness events.
The Road Ahead
“The athleisure market is undergoing a fundamental shift. Consumers are moving beyond logo-led aesthetics and prioritising actual performance benefits. This shift from aspiration to utility creates opportunities for brands like ours that lead with technology, not just style. With rising temperatures and increased outdoor activity, climate-adaptive apparel is becoming essential, not optional,” Kulkarni notes on how the athleisure market is evolving.
As the brand grows, its priority is to strengthen retail operations and stay aligned with its FY targets. The key challenges ahead are:
- Maintaining operational excellence at scale across all new and existing stores.
- Meeting ambitious expansion and performance targets for the coming financial year.
- Building on strong in-store performance by further improving productivity and customer experience.
“These focus areas will ensure we expand with consistency, discipline, and sustained momentum,” concludes Kulkarni.
