With a top line growth of 27% in the last quarter of 2009-10, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting, the FMCG arm of Wipro Limited, says that in its growth trajectory, there is no room to divest any of its businesses. Vineet Agarwal, president, Wipro Consumer Care, speaks to FE?s Shreya Roy about the dividends the company is reaping from its recent acquisitions, its growth plans and the year gone by.
Give us an overview of the consumer care division?s growth last year and the January-March quarter?
Consumer care and lighting revenue grew 17% over last year. This quarter, our top line was Rs 608 crore, and our bottom line was Rs 81 crore. Our top line grew 27% and it?s been a good performance.
Your furniture and commercial information technology businesses were affected by recession. Where does it stand now and what are your plans?
In the first half of the year, our commercial IT and furniture business was under a lot of pressure because of slowdown in construction and cut down in investments by IT/ITeS. We have definitely seen positive traction in the second half. We think there is positive sentiment. We have done well with our new products like light emitting diodes and with our focus on lighting of green buildings. Our new product range of furniture designed by international designer Tim Wallace has done really well.
How has the Yardley acquisition worked out?
This is the first full quarter for Yardley. It contributes about 5% to the division?s revenue. Overall, Yardley has done very well. It has grown at over 80% in India. We are working on improving our advertising and distribution. We think there is latent equity for Yardley in India and we should be able to exploit it. We will be focusing on the Yardley deodorant.
Any acquisitions lined up?
We acquired Yardley recently and now we are looking at consolidating it and taking value. We have done well in all our acquisitions.We will look at acquisitions if it fits into our strategy; it?s not that we have stopped looking for them.
There have been rumors of divesting from the Vanaspathy and Baby Care businesses. Is there any truth to these?
We are quite surprised. We are in a growth mode and divestment does not feature in it. Vanaspathy is an old and emotional business for us and still contributes significantly in Maharashtra and MP. It has remained flat for a while but we have a clear focus on distribution in those states.
What are the products are you betting big on?
We focused a lot on diapers in baby care and this year and we have grown about 40% in diapers itself. Our glucose brand, Glucovita, is also a great driver for us. We are also looking at home and office security.