Unilever’s former finance chief Fernando Fernandez, who replaced Hein Schumacher as CEO last week, believes the India business, its second-largest after the US, will see an acceleration in sales growth in the second half of 2025, on the back of Reserve Bank’s interest rate cuts and the government’s fiscal stimulus measures.
Fernandez, 58, speaking on Friday in a fireside chat with Barclays, his first public comments since his elevation, said he saw food deflation setting in after many quarters of food inflation in India, which would aid spending among middle-class consumers, the backbone of the domestic market for consumer goods.
He sees India, along with the US, as “geographical anchors” for Unilever, where bolt-on acquisitions, portfolio and channel changes, in keeping with consumer preferences, would drive future decision-making. In the long term, Fernandez said he wanted to create “a machine of demand creation” within the company and make a “decisive shift to premium” across categories. India contributes 11-12% to Unilever’s overall revenue. US contributes around 19-20% to global revenue of the firm.
“We need India to grow faster than what it has done recently to be a key driver (of growth) to the ones we have in developed markets and other regions. While we have an exceptional position in India, the portfolio that brought us to that position will not help us keep it in the future. India is a special place because richer Indians and poorer Indians live in close proximity,” Fernandez, who has spent 37 years at Unilever, said. He was speaking for the first time in public after his elevation to the top job at Unilever in a surprise announcement last Tuesday.
Fernandez said that his elevation was “forward-looking” and that the Unilever board saw his track record and skill sets as a “better fit” to increase the pace of transformation within the company. “I will not reassure you in terms of slowing of the pace (of growth) at Unilever because that is not what we should be doing,” he said.
In the September quarter, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), the Indian subsidiary of Unilever, had reported sluggish revenue growth, with profit growth up 19.5% due to a one-time gain. Excluding the gain, profit growth was down 1.07% versus last year, reflecting the broader weakness in the domestic fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market.
Fernandez said his near-term priorities would be to divide or “divisionalise” the company’s sales force in the Top 24 markets, including India and the US. He would also focus on driving volume growth, concentrate on a strong innovation plan across segments, ensure a productivity plan was in place by June of this year and complete the separation of the ice-cream business by the end of 2025.
On a longer-term basis, Fernandez said that he would focus on building what he called “desire at scale” within the company and concentrate on the firm’s Top 30 brands and how they could travel faster across markets in terms of innovations, variants and new launches. This would entail building a “marketing and sales machine” in Unilever, which was committed to increasing the superiority, functionality and aesthetics of the company’s brands.
“Desire has been a very important word or mantra in my time with the beauty and wellbeing business. I believe desire can be applied to every other business group within the company. The consumer now is far more discerning and demanding,” he said.
Fernandez also said that he would focus on turning around Unilever’s operations in China and Indonesia, important Asian markets, which have been a drag on the company’s overall performance in recent years.