KIKO Milano Is Betting Big on India

KIKO Milano is having a serious India moment. The Italian beauty brand has opened a new flagship in Mumbai as it accelerates its expansion across the country, and this is clearly bigger than adding another pretty store to a shopping mall.

KIKO wants India to become one of its most important markets in the world.

That is a pretty ambitious beauty bet.

Mumbai Is Getting the Flagship Treatment

The new store gives KIKO another physical presence in one of India's biggest beauty and fashion cities, adding to a retail network that has been expanding rapidly since the brand's partnership with Reliance.

KIKO currently has exclusive stores across major Indian cities, alongside its presence through Reliance's Tira beauty platform. The brand is targeting 19 exclusive outlets in India by the end of 2026.

That is basically KIKO saying it doesn't want Indian customers to experience the brand only through a screen.

It wants them walking into the store, playing with the makeup, testing shades and eventually walking out with something they absolutely did not plan to buy.

Which is how beauty stores work.

India Could Become a Top Five Market

The really interesting number isn't the store count.

It's the ambition behind it.

KIKO's global CEO Simone Dominici says the company expects India to enter its top ten markets soon and could see the country become one of its top three to five markets within five years.

That's a huge jump for a market that only recently became a major focus of KIKO's international expansion.

And the company has a reason to be optimistic. KIKO says India is currently growing faster than its global business, making the country one of its most exciting expansion opportunities.

The Internet Is Already Doing a Lot of the Work

There is one particularly interesting difference between KIKO's Indian business and its global business: online shopping.

Globally, online sales account for roughly 14 to 15 percent of KIKO's business.

In India, they're already above 40 percent.

That makes sense when you consider how quickly Indian beauty consumers have embraced digital shopping, but KIKO doesn't expect the online share to stay quite that high forever.

As the physical network grows, the company expects online sales to settle somewhere around 30 to 40 percent of its Indian business.

Basically, KIKO wants both: the convenience of Tira and online shopping, plus the experience of walking into an actual KIKO store.

And KIKO Is Starting to Make Beauty for India

The brand isn't simply dropping its European assortment into the country and calling it a day.

KIKO is beginning to localize its offering, including an India-exclusive Diwali collection featuring nine products across 16 SKUs.

The company also plans to develop more shades and undertones specifically for Indian consumers.

That is important because “global beauty brand” can mean very little if your foundation range doesn't actually understand the people you're selling to.

KIKO says its core assortment will remain global, but the India-specific launches suggest the market is starting to influence what the brand makes, not simply where it sells.

Makeup Is Still the Main Character

KIKO is not trying to reinvent itself as a skincare company just because skincare is having a moment.

Makeup still represents around 80 percent of the company's sales globally, while skincare accounts for about 11 percent. The brand also operates in fragrance and haircare and has begun introducing those categories in India through Tira.

That gives KIKO plenty of room to grow beyond its original makeup identity without losing the thing people already know it for.

And with the average KIKO product price in India sitting around ₹1,430, the brand is positioning itself in that interesting space between mass beauty and luxury.

Good makeup, Italian branding, a little bit of indulgence, but without asking you to finance a small car for a lipstick collection.

India Is Becoming a Beauty Battleground

KIKO isn't the only international beauty company paying attention to India.

The country's beauty and personal-care market is expanding quickly, and international brands are increasingly competing with sophisticated local companies and a consumer base that is already extremely comfortable shopping across online and physical channels.

That makes the KIKO strategy particularly interesting.

The brand isn't treating India like a side market where it can slowly test the waters.

It's building stores, expanding online, launching localized products and openly talking about making India one of its biggest markets.

The Mumbai Store Is Really a Signal

And that's why the new flagship matters.

A single store isn't going to turn India into KIKO's biggest market overnight. But it is part of a much larger push that could dramatically change the brand's footprint over the next few years.

KIKO crossed $1 billion in revenue in 2025 after doubling the size of its business over four years, and it expects double-digit global growth in 2026.

Now it is looking at India as one of the places that can keep that momentum going.

So yes, Mumbai just got another beauty store.

But KIKO is clearly thinking much bigger than one address.