Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting (WCCLG), the FMCG division of Wipro, has had a ?satisfactory? quarter, with revenues up 18% year-on-year at R755 crore, contributing to 9% of the IT giant’s total revenue for the three month period. The division, which recently acquired Aramusk, says that it will focus on the men’s toiletries market, while strengthening distribution and advertising for its existing products like Santoor, Yardley, Glucovita. Vineet Agarwal, president of the division, in a conversation with FE?s Shreya Roy, talks about the divsision’s performance, its acquisitions, and focus, going forward.

How has the first quarter been for WCCLG and what would you say has led growth?

It has been very satisfactory for us. We grew 18% to R755 crore for the quarter ended June 2011, with an operating margin of R90 crore, at 12%. The international segment, which is the Unza buyout, did well for us, led by China, where we grew by 30%. Our institutional business, which is commercial lighting, modular furniture and switches continues to do well despite of all the talk about muted GDP growth and rising inflation. This segment was led by our focus on LEDs in the commercial lighting business, premium designer furniture in the modular furniture business. We have now lighted over 60% of the certified green buildings in the country and sold over 3 lakh chairs and work stations.

How has the consumer care business performed?

The consumer business, which is Santoor, Yardley, and domestic lighting, has done well, with Santoor growing at 21%. Yardley continues to do well in India. We have doubled our numbers this quarter over last year. In Chandrika, we did a relaunch with a focus on active ayurveda. Overall, it has been a good quarter.

You recently acquired a men?s toiletries brand. When do you expect the product to be out?

We acquired Aramusk in June from VVF, which was a small acquisition in the men’s toiletries range. We will probably take another quarter to launch the products. All our acquisitions have performed very well. Yardley, which we did not expect to do well in India, has beaten expectations. Glucovita, is now seven times the size of what we bought it for. We hope this will perform like our other acquisitions.

Is men?s toiletries going to be an area of focus for the company?

Yes. Even though a lot of people may not be aware, Yardley also has men’s toiletries.

But we do believe that the male toiletries and male grooming segment has become stronger and Aramusk should provide some answers there. We plan to start off with soaps and then we will see how much we can diversify, how strong the brand is and how much diversification it can take.

Can we expect similar, small acquisitions this year?

In the past, we have done small and large acquisitions. We are looking at products that we believe have latent brand equity which can be taken forward. Both Yardley, and Aramusk have been acquired because of their brand value that can be leveraged.

What will be your focus for the existing products?

Broadly, our mindset has been to grow faster in various markets, which we have been doing. We need to differentiate products and strengthen distribution.

We hope to be able to repeat the success we’ve had in Yardley by pushing in distribution, improving product offerings and increased advertising, with other products.

For Santoor, we are covering 6.5 lakh outlets directly, in Yardley, we are covering 90,000 outlets, and we are planning to increase that. In the modular furniture business we are betting on new international designer ranges and giving consumers an international, contemporary product at Indian prices.