Metro Shoes is an Indian footwear chain run by Metro Brands Limited, a listed company in Mumbai. It sells shoes, sandals and accessories from 375 stores across 222 cities, at advertised prices of ₹1,000 to ₹10,000. It owns no factories and makes nothing itself. The most useful thing to know is that its sibling chain, Mochi, is not a different price tier — on the company’s own disclosure the two sit ₹11 apart.
Metro Shoes and Mochi are one business wearing two signs. The FY25 annual report gives both the same “Mid and Premium” segment, the same ₹1,000 to ₹10,000 band and the same 1,600 sq ft store, and the last brand-wise figure published was ₹1,482 a pair for Metro against ₹1,471 for Mochi. Metro Brands owns no plant: a Metro formal shoe on its own site names Boots India, Agra as the manufacturer.
Snapshot
- Founded
- 1955, Mumbai, India, per every filing; the brand’s own site says 1947
- Founder
- Malik Tejani
- Headquarters
- Kurla (West), Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
- Current owner
- Metro Brands Limited, Malik family controlled, listed on the BSE and NSE since 22 December 2021; promoters held 71.80% in June 2026
- Category
- Footwear and accessories retail
- Price band in India
- ₹1,000 to ₹10,000 advertised; own-label stock sold at ₹1,014 to ₹3,493 on 22 August 2026
- Available in India
- Official — 375 stores at 30 June 2026, plus metroshoes.com
How it started
Malik Tejani sold shoes on Grant Road before opening his own store in Colaba. He named it after the cinema, because a cinema signalled luxury in the Bombay of the day. The business grew on Parsi weddings, film stars and a contract to supply Air India’s uniform shoes.
The year it opened is disputed, and the company disputes it with itself. The IPO prospectus says: “We opened our first store under the Metro brand in Mumbai in 1955.” The FY25 annual report agrees. But metroshoes.com says the shop opened “in the year of freedom, 1947”, and the corporate site runs the tagline “Since 1947” on the same page as “IN 1955 WE TOOK THE FIRST STEP”.
The honest reading: the family trade may date to 1947, the store dates to 1955 in every document filed with a regulator, and the company dates to 1977. The 1947 date has never appeared in a filing.
- Metro Shoes Private LimitedIncorporated in Mumbai, 19 January 1977
- Metro Shoes LimitedPublic in 1992, private again in 2002
- Metro Shoes Limited, againBack to a public limited company in 2007
- Metro Brands LimitedRenamed in 2018; listed 22 December 2021
“Metro Shoes” is the shop sign. “Metro Brands Limited” is the company, and that name is only eight years old.
What they actually make
Nothing. Metro Brands owns no factory anywhere, and says so in its own risk disclosure: “We are dependent on third-parties for the manufacturing of all the products we sell.” The FY25 annual report counts more than 250 footwear vendor partners, many of those relationships over twenty years old. This was a decision, not a limitation.
The proof sits on the product page. A Metro-branded men’s formal lace-up, SKU 19-5537, carries the Legal Metrology declaration Indian law requires: country of origin India, manufacturer “Boots India… Sikandara, Agra-282007, Uttar Pradesh”, and Metro Brands Limited named only as the marketer, from a Bhiwandi warehouse. A Metro shoe is a shoe someone in Agra made and Metro put its name on.
Chairman Rafique Malik tried manufacturing, stopped, and has been blunt about why.
Manufacturing and retailing are conflicts of interest.
That puts Metro at the opposite end of the industry from Bata, which manufactures and trades, and from Relaxo, whose Sparx line comes out of its own plants. Metro Brands earned ₹416 crore of net profit in FY26 on ₹2,864 crore of revenue; Bata India earned ₹134 crore on ₹3,516 crore. Three times the profit on 18% less revenue, made renting shelves.
What Metro Shoes costs in India
The company publishes one band for the Metro format: ₹1,000 to ₹10,000. It is honest only at the bottom. On Metro’s catalogue and on metroshoes.com, own-label stock clusters at ₹1,990 to ₹4,990 MRP and rarely sells there.
We checked the sale listing on 22 August 2026. Discounts on Metro-branded stock ran from 11% to 55%, at selling prices of ₹1,014 to ₹3,493. Third-party brands on the same sites — Clarks, Skechers, Cheemo — held full MRP that day.
| Metro-branded item, 22 August 2026 | MRP | Selling price |
|---|---|---|
| Men Brown Casual Slippers | ₹2,290 | ₹1,030 |
| Men Black Casual Sandals | ₹2,990 | ₹1,644 |
| Men Black Casual Loafers | ₹2,490 | ₹1,369 |
| Men Black Casual Moccasin | ₹4,990 | ₹3,243 |
| Men Black Formal Lace Up | ₹3,290 | ₹2,927 |
MRP against what you actually pay
The widest gap that day was on men’s casual slippers. Elsewhere on the same site a Metro formal lace-up at ₹3,690 MRP was selling at ₹3,690, no discount at all. Both sites also run a standing 5% extra discount on prepaid orders above ₹1,000.
- MRP
- ₹2,290
- Selling price
- ₹1,030
- Gap
- 55% off MRP
- Checked on
- 22 August 2026
Across the chain, the blended selling price was ₹1,600 in FY26 and ₹1,675 in the quarter to 30 June 2026. A shop advertising up to ₹10,000 moves shoes at about ₹1,600 a pair.
Who Metro Shoes is actually for
It suits a middle-income Indian shopper buying an occasion shoe in a mall, most often a woman — women’s product was 41% of store sales in the June 2026 quarter, against 34% for men. It rewards anyone who wants to try the shoe on and will wait for a sale.
It is not for anyone who believes they are stepping up a tier from Mochi. On every dimension Metro Brands discloses, the two are the same shop.
| Disclosed by the company | Metro | Mochi |
|---|---|---|
| Segment, in its own words | Mid and Premium | Mid and Premium |
| Advertised price range | ₹1,000 to ₹10,000 | ₹1,000 to ₹10,000 |
| Typical store size | 1,600 sq ft | 1,600 sq ft |
| Realisation per unit, 2021 | ₹1,482 | ₹1,471 |
| Stores at 30 June 2026 | 375 | 289 |
| Factories owned | None | None |
The realisation gap is ₹11, or 0.7%. Metro is the older and larger fascia, Mochi’s copy leans younger, and the third-party racks differ a little. That is the whole difference. Anyone calling Mochi the affordable one, or the premium one, is contradicting the company’s own annual report.
That pair covers the six months ended 30 September 2021, and we read it in Axis Capital’s IPO note, which reproduces the prospectus table, rather than in the prospectus itself — the relevant chapters would not open for us. Metro Brands stopped publishing brand-wise realisation after the IPO, so five-year-old numbers are still the most recent split on the record.
Own brands were 73% of revenue at these stores in FY26 and 71% in the June 2026 quarter. Roughly ₹1 in every ₹4 spent in a Metro Shoes store goes on somebody else’s brand — Crocs, Skechers, Clarks, Fila — and that share is rising.
Reputation and controversies
Metro Brands has a clean adjudicated record. As of 22 August 2026 we found no regulatory action, no labour finding, no consumer commission order and no product recall against it from an acceptable source. Complaint-aggregator sites carry grievances, but none is an adjudicated order.
Where it appears in court it is as the plaintiff, and it has won twice at interim stage. In November 2024 the Bombay High Court restrained the mark ‘DESIMOCHI’ and declared ‘MOCHI’ well known. In April 2025 the same court injuncted a firm trading as ‘METBRANDS’, which adopted the name around December 2021, the month Metro Brands listed.
The live risk is structural, not legal. A retailer with no plant has no direct line of sight into conditions at 250-plus vendors, and Metro Brands publishes no supplier list.
The ownership claim you will keep seeing
“Rekha Jhunjhunwala owns 14% of Metro Brands” is repeated everywhere and is no longer accurate. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was never a named promoter — the prospectus names five, all Malik family entities — and he sold nothing in the IPO.
- Rakesh Jhunjhunwala buys inShareholders’ agreement dated 2007, amended in 2015
- No exit at the IPODecember 2021 — he sold nothing in the offer
- Rekha Jhunjhunwala, 9.58%Still in her own name at the March 2025 quarter
- Three children’s trusts, 14.37%3,91,53,600 shares at the March 2026 quarter
The holding is intact, worth about ₹4,035 crore, and it is the largest non-Malik block on the register.
We could not establish whether those trusts are filed as Promoter Group or as Public. Trendlyne’s March 2025 breakdown places the holding under Public and lists only Malik entities as Promoter Group, but the BSE shareholding-pattern pages returned errors and the NSE version would not render.
Buying it in India
Buy from the chain, not around it
There were 375 Metro stores in 222 cities at 30 June 2026, and 85% of sales happen inside them. Those stores and metroshoes.com are the only channels the company stands behind.
Read the label, because there is no hologram
Metro Brands publishes no authentication guide, hologram or serial check. Genuine stock does carry a Legal Metrology declaration: a named manufacturer, a country of origin, and “Marketed by Metro Brands Limited” at the Bhiwandi address. A listing missing that is missing what the law requires.
Know the floor
On 22 August 2026 the cheapest Metro-branded item on the official sale page was ₹1,014, off an MRP of ₹1,690. A marketplace listing well under ₹1,000 for a current style is worth questioning first.
Never pay MRP on own-label
Metro-branded stock was 11% to 55% off on one page on one day. Deep discounting on own labels is routine, so the printed MRP is close to notional.
Treat the third-party rack differently
Clarks, Skechers and Cheemo held full MRP in the same shops that day. If a Metro store cuts hard on one of those, ask why — they are also the brands with the largest counterfeit markets in India.
Common questions
Is Metro Shoes an Indian brand?
Yes. Metro Shoes is owned by Metro Brands Limited, incorporated in Mumbai on 19 January 1977 and listed since 22 December 2021. The Malik family controls it, with promoters holding 71.80% at 30 June 2026. Its shoes are largely made in India by third-party vendors.
Is Metro Shoes the same company as Mochi?
Same company, different shop sign. Metro Brands owns both. Its FY25 annual report gives them the identical segment, the identical ₹1,000 to ₹10,000 band and the identical 1,600 sq ft store, and the last realisation figures disclosed, for 2021, were ₹1,482 and ₹1,471.
Does Metro Shoes make its own shoes?
No. Metro Brands owns no factory and tells investors it depends on third parties for every product it sells. It uses more than 250 vendors, and the Legal Metrology label on a Metro formal shoe names Boots India in Sikandara, Agra as the manufacturer.
Was Metro Shoes founded in 1947 or 1955?
Every regulatory filing says 1955. The 1947 date appears only in Metro’s marketing, and the corporate site carries both at once. Treat 1955 as the sourced answer.
Does Rekha Jhunjhunwala own Metro Shoes?
No. At the March 2026 quarter, 3,91,53,600 shares, or 14.37%, sat with three discretionary trusts named after Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s children. She held 9.58% in her own name as recently as March 2025. He was never a named promoter.
How we research and verify brand audits: our methodology.
References
- Metro Brands Limited, IPO Prospectus, December 2021 — incorporation, name changes, the 1955 first store, the five named promoters, third-party manufacturing
- metroshoes.com, homepage and footer — the 1947 founding claim and the prepaid discount
- metrobrands.com, corporate homepage — carries both “Since 1947” and “IN 1955 WE TOOK THE FIRST STEP”
- Forbes India, “Metro Brands: Big shoes to fill” — Malik Tejani, the Colaba store, and Rafique Malik on manufacturing as a conflict of interest
- Metro Brands Limited, Annual Report 2024-25 — 1955 founding, 250-plus vendor partners, FY25 margins
- metroshoes.com, Metro men’s formal lace-up, SKU 19-5537 — Legal Metrology declaration naming Boots India, Agra, and the ₹3,690 undiscounted price
- Screener.in, Metro Brands — FY26 revenue and profit, promoter holding at 30 June 2026
- Screener.in, Bata India — Bata’s FY26 revenue and net profit
- Metro Brands Limited, Annual Report 2024-25, Store Formats — identical segment, price band and store size for Metro and Mochi
- metroshoes.com, sale listing, checked 22 August 2026 — every MRP and selling price in the table
- mochishoes.com, women’s heels listing, checked 22 August 2026 — third-party brands holding full MRP alongside discounted own-label
- Axis Capital, Metro Brands IPO note — realisation of ₹1,482 and ₹1,471 for the six months ended 30 September 2021, reproduced from the prospectus
- Metro Brands Limited, FY26 Earnings Presentation, 20 May 2026 — ₹1,600 selling price, 73% own-brand share, 85% in-store
- Metro Brands Limited, Q1 FY27 Investor Presentation, 4 August 2026 — 375 Metro and 289 Mochi stores, 222 cities, category mix, ₹1,675, 71% own-brand
- Bar & Bench, Bombay High Court order of 28 November 2024 — ‘DESIMOCHI’ restrained, ‘MOCHI’ declared well known
- SCC Online, 2025 SCC OnLine Bom 1752, order of 30 April 2025 — injunction against ‘METBRANDS’
- Business Today, 12 May 2026 — 14.37% held by three discretionary trusts at the March 2026 quarter
- Trendlyne, Metro Brands shareholding pattern — Rekha Jhunjhunwala’s 9.58% at March 2025, classified under Public
Metro Shoes is a reasonable buy on sale and a poor one at MRP. Own-label stock was 11% to 55% off on its own site on 22 August 2026, and the chain moves shoes at a blended ₹1,600 a pair while advertising a ceiling of ₹10,000. Pay ₹1,500 to ₹2,500 for a leather formal or a sandal here and you get fair value, with a return counter attached. Pay ₹4,990 and you are funding a 57.7% gross margin.
What deserves scepticism is the tiering. Metro is not the premium half of a ladder with Mochi at the bottom, and the company has published nothing to support that reading since 2021 — same segment, same band, same 1,600 sq ft box, ₹11 apart on the last figures it disclosed. Two fascias in one mall catch the same shopper twice, and that is worth knowing before you cross the atrium to compare.
At ₹1,482 against ₹1,471, the sign over the door is the only thing you are choosing between.
