Unilever shaping up India strategy

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Mumbai, Dec 4: Unilever, the world’s second largest food and detergents company after Procter & Gamble with 2005 revenues of 39.7 billion euros, is drawing up an aggressive India strategy that will help develop its food business here, maintain and grow marketshare and profitability across categories, launch innovative products focused on health and wellness through focused R&D programmes and partner with top notch players in organised retail for scale and reach.

“There is change, growth and excitement in India, and we see that the country will contribute beyond call centres and Bangalore,” said Patrick Cescau, group chief executive officer, Unilever, in a media interaction here on Monday. Unilever, which recently saw its third-quarter profit dip 48% on higher advertising spend and rising cost of commodities, is looking at larger and newer markets like India, China, Africa and South East Asia for growth. The Asia and Africa market saw a 5% volume growth for Unilever in the third quarter, compared to 3.1% in Europe and 2.7% in North America. The region fetched the company sales worth euro 2.78bn for the quarter.

Hindustan Lever (HLL), the Indian arm of the Anglo-Dutch company that owns popular brands like Lipton, Lifebuoy, Lux, Pond’s, Sunsilk and Surf, as well as other Unilever subsidiaries in emerging markets, are important to Unilever. “The rate of growth for our products in markets like India, is higher than that in Europe. Today, HLL leads in 8 out of 10 categories here,” Cescau, who started off his career in 1973 with Unilever France, said.

“We want to develop our foods business here, based on the needs of the Indian consumer. We will not recycle products from Europe for India,” said Cescau, who also asserted India’s importance in Unilever’s decision making process with its contribution of top managers to the parent company. Harish Manwani, chairman, HLL, is also president, Unilever Asia & AMET, and Vindi Banga, former HLL chairman, now heads Unilever’s foods business as its president. “Close to 35% of the top management of Unilever is from the developing and emerging markets,” Cescau said.