Following the budget announcement to reduce excise duties on sanitary products, P&G has dropped the price of Whisper regular (10s) to Rs 58.50 from Rs 60. The price of the 20-unit pack product has been reduced from Rs 115 to Rs 112 with immediate effect.

There will, however, be no price reductions on those Whisper products which are being imported. For instance, the price of Whisper Ultra - imported from the US - will remain unchanged at Rs 80 for a pack of 10.

Whisper contributes about 18 per cent to P&G's turnover of Rs 468 crore. P&G markets several products under brands such as Whisper sanitary napkin in the feminine hygiene category. The other variants of Whisper include, Whisper with wings, Whisper Extra Long and Whisper wrap-and-throw. Besides Whisper Ultra, Whisper Extra Long is also imported.

The company has decided to absorb cost increases on products where excise duties have gone up, such as shampoos, said a company spokesperson. On shampoos, the effective excise levels have gone up due to an additional special excise duty. P&G's move to drop prices comes close on the heels of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) announcing price reductions on its entire sanpro portfolio. J&J dropped prices in the range of 2 to 4 per cent on Carefree and Stayfree brand of products last week.

J&J's pricing continues to be 28 per cent lower as compared to P&G's products manufactured in India. Analysts expect price reduction in the Rs 196 crore market to spur growth.

The 538 million units sanpro market is said to have suffered a degrowth of about 5 per cent in volume and 6.6 per cent in value last year. While J&J leads with a volume share of about 54 per cent, P&G's value leadership comes from a 44.6 per cent market share.