Your laundry bill is set to rise as major detergent brands are learnt to have increased the prices of their widely used products such as Surf Excel, Rin, and Ariel by 4-5%. This follows the increase witnessed in April when Surf Excel, Ariel and Tide Increased rates by 4-6%. At that time, companies had also pulled freebies that were given under promotional activity. However, P&G is giving away a plastic container on its bigger packets now, Kotak Institutional Equities said in a report.
You will be paying this much now
Hindustan Unilever’s Surf Excel Easy Wash will now retail at 3% higher price than before, while the Rin detergents have recorded a 2% hike. In liquid detergents, Surf Excel Liquid Matic will now cost 4-5% more, the Kotak report, co-authored by Rohit Chordia, Jaykumar Doshi and Aniket Sethi, said. Also, P&G’s detergent brand Ariel Matics is offering a free plastic container worth over Rs 329 on its 4+2 kg SKU while raising the price of the same SKU to Rs 999-1,099 from the earlier price of Rs 940-1,040. This is for the top load and front load Ariel Matics.
Commenting upon the soaps and dish wash category, the report said that the pricing and promotional activity in these categories were largely stable that it has not noticed any price intervention by Hindustan Unilever in Lux and Lifebuoy, as yet. Also, there has been no significant change in consumer staples such as hair oils, oral care products and shampoos.
Brands with stable prices
The prices of certain detergent products have been stable for a year now. These include Ghadi detergent 3Kg, Jyothy Labs’ Henko Stain Champion 1Kg; Henko Lintelligent Matic – Top Load 1Kg; Henko Lintelligent Matic – Front Load 1Kg; Ujala Supreme 250ml P&G’s Ariel Matic Front Load 1 Kg; Ariel Matic Liquid Detergent 750ml; Ezee Detergent Liquid 500gm and Surf Det Liquid Excel Gentle Wash 200ml.
