Global consumer goods major Unilever will double down on the India market and will not make the mistakes here that it made in China, CEO Fernando Fernandez said at the Deutsche Bank Global Consumer Conference in Paris on Tuesday.

Admitting that Unilever was late to the premium boom in China, Fernandez said that India would not see a similar situation play out. “We were late to the China party, we will not be late to the India party,” Fernandez said, adding that it would introduce more of its global prestige home and personal care brands to accelerate its push into premium categories.

Unilever counts US and India as its top two markets in the world, accounting for 21 per cent and 16 per cent to topline. China is the third largest market for Unilever. In the last one year since taking over as the CEO of the company, Fernandez has repeatedly reiterated his commitment to the two top markets.

In India, where its subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, is the FMCG market leader, Fernandez said the firm was building a portfolio of premium brands with global potential.

“We now have a portfolio of super-premium brands that will travel into India at the right time when the market develops,” he said, adding that several premium brands built in the US are already being internationalised across markets.Fernandez also that he was betting on India becoming the “largest exponential growth opportunity of the next decade” as consumers move up the value chain.

As part of this transition, the company is concentrating capital allocation behind premium brands, innovation and acquisitions in high-growth categories, he added.

“We will have 22% of our business in the United States building a portfolio of the future that will make them travel internationally,” said Fernandez. “This is where we are concentrating allocation of capital, building a portfolio of premium brands that can travel.”

These brands include prestige and wellness labels such as Hourglass, Nutrafol, Liquid I.V. and K18, some of which have been acquired over the past few years as Unilever sought to strengthen its presence in fast-growing premium segments. The company said around 40% of its prestige business is already international and that brands acquired in the US are increasingly being expanded into overseas markets.

At Hindustan Unilever, premium products already account for a third of sales as the company looks to increase this share to 50% to drive profitability.

HUL launches fragrance hub in IIT Bombay

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) on Tuesday announced the inauguration of its new Unilever Fragrance Hub (UFH) at the IIT Bombay campus, reinforcing India’s role as a key growth market and research and development (R&D) hub for the company. The India facility is the third global hub, after those in the UK and the US, and is under Unilever’s overall €100 million programme to advance in-house, digitally enabled fragrance creation capabilities.