Tata Group's electronic retail chain, Croma, will invest over Rs 40 crore to scale up its stores to 52 by next March, a top company official said.

"We will open 13 more large-format stores in only those markets where we are present by end-this fiscal and will invest over Rs 40 crore for the same," Croma chief executive officer Ajit Joshi said in Mumbai.

Tata Sons' wholly-owned subsidiary, Infinity Retail, runs Croma, which has outlets in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Surat and Vadodara.

The company will also launch fully automatic washing machines under its private label, Croma, this fiscal.

At present, it has 46 private labels which it plans to scale up to 100 this fiscal.

Currently, the company has several products -- fridges (of three capacities), cloth-dryers, flat-screen TVs, irons, juicers and mixers, DVD players, vacuum cleaners, coolers and micro-ovens - under the label.

"With the launch of the washing machine, we will cover almost the entire range of electronic goods," Joshi said, adding Croma products are cheaper by 10-15 per cent in comparison to branded ones.