Japanese beauty major Shiseido is stepping up its India bet with the launch of its premium sun-care brand Anessa in the country, even as it plans more standalone stores, wider distribution and deeper investments in omnichannel and localisation.
Shiseido’s next phase of growth in India will rest on four pillars: consumer relevance, retail expansion, omnichannel growth and deeper localisation,” Nicole Tan, president and CEO, Shiseido Asia Pacific, said in a conversation with FE.
The move comes as India’s beauty market enters a period of rapid premiumisation. Redseer estimates India’s beauty and personal care market will grow to $34 billion by 2028 from $23 billion now, driven by premium beauty and personal care. It will touch $40 billion by 2030 by which time India will be the fourth-largest beauty market in the world, Redseer says.
For Shiseido, which has operated in India since 2001, the opportunity is increasingly moving beyond the country’s largest metros.
“India is increasingly an important growth engine for us,” Tan said. “We’ve seen how Southeast Asian markets have evolved, and we believe India is on a similar trajectory, if not a stronger one. For us, India is not a short-term or even a mid-term play. It’s a long-term play, and we are here to stay,” she added.
Target Segment
Anessa, which is already available on Reliance’s beauty platform Tira, will progressively roll out on Sephora and other beauty channels. Shiseido is positioning the brand between mass-market and prestige products—a segment Tan believes remains under-served. A 20-ml Anessa Perfect UV Suncreen, for instance, retails for Rs 1,050 on Tira; the same sunscreen in a 60-ml bottle is priced at Rs 2,700 a unit, while a spray format comes for Rs 1,750 a unit.
“Sun care is a category growing exceedingly fast, and there is currently an under-served segment in the market,” she said. “You have mass players at one end and prestige at the other, with very little in between. Anessa fills that mass-premium gap,” she added.
The move adds another growth pillar to a portfolio that includes Shiseido skincare products, NARS cosmetics and fragrances such as Issey Miyake and Narciso Rodriguez in India. Entry-level Shiseido skincare and NARS products, for instance, are available from Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 onwards, while the starting point for Issey Miyake and Narciso Rodriquez is Rs 4,000-5,000 a unit.
Shiseido launched NARS in India in October 2023 and has since opened three standalone stores, in Mumbai and Delhi each, with another recent addition in Gurgaon. Tan said the company will continue investing in stores when suitable locations emerge.
Market Strategy
The company is also betting on younger consumers. Tan pointed to rising internet penetration, consumers entering beauty at a younger age, increasing female workforce participation and the expansion of the middle class as structural drivers.
Yet, India’s biggest opportunity may also be its biggest complexity: diversity.
“India is non-homogeneous,” she said. “That diversity and that richness really stands out for India.”
For Shiseido, localisation therefore does not immediately mean manufacturing in India. Instead, the company is focusing on communication, consumer narratives and market relevance. “We’ll continue to build on those dimensions first before looking at any manufacturing considerations,” Tan said.