new deelhi a struggling 261yearold uk toystore chain is seeking a new lease of life in the hands of billionaire mukesh ambani whos looking to india where about a fifth of the worlds babies are born to fuel its revival hamleys a british retail icon that hasnt made a profit for a number of years plans to quadruple its outlets in the former british colony to more than 500 in three years despite the pandemic according to darshan mehta chief executive officer of ambanis reliance brands ltd besides the main growth market the company is also adding stores from europe to south africa and china he said in an interview advt ambani 63 bought hamleys in 2019 to strengthen his retail footprint as part of the ongoing transformation of his oilandchemicals conglomerate reliance industries ltd into a consumer and technology behemoth the deep pockets of asias richest man and indias demographics could help breathe new life into hamleys whose share of global toy sales was estimated at 06 last year by euromonitor international and see it avert the pitfalls faced by rivals such as toys r us incwith a backer whose net worth is 72 billion hamleys is seeking to tap into what it sees as an inadequately serviced section of indias almost 14 billion people of which about 27 are children under 14 the country accounts for just 1 of the 90 billion global toy industry meaning the potential for growth is high mehta saidthere is a lot of headroom and india is no way near saturation mehta said we are now mulling how we can roll out stores in newer geographies and new formatshamleys stores are famed for the carnivallike experience allowing children to race toy cars enjoy model train sets and play various games in a country like india with its densely packed cities and limited entertainment options such an environment could be a hook to get customers to visit again product prices appealing to buyers of modest means as well as the superrich make hamleys an elastic brand said mehta advt in asia hamleys is seen as high class and its on par with harrods in some ways said marc alonso a londonbased senior research analyst at euromonitor so its attracting that customer base which is why in some places like india and china it has been seeing some good sales growth in the past few yearswhile the pandemic has been hitting parts of indias economy mehta sees the toy industry as recession proof because many families choose the happiness of kids over anything else but other chains have struggled before the virus toys r us was the biggest victim of the us retail apocalypse when it filed for bankruptcy in 2017 crushed by debt and felled by competition from online sellers such as amazoncom incthough the american chain is on a recovery path now under a new owner a protracted pandemic points to an uncertain future for retailersnailing online sales is key to avoiding the