The brand reaches 25 crore households as 100 new products get introduced during the year
ITC’s vibrant portfolio of over 25 world-class Indian brands represents an annual consumer spend of nearly Rs 32,500 crores and reaches over 250 million households in India. These home-grown, purpose-led Indian brands, powered by agile innovation, support the competitiveness of domestic value chains, especially in the agri space, thereby ensuring the creation and retention of value within the country.
Despite challenging conditions and intense competition, ITC’s FMCG businesses outpaced the industry in both urban and rural markets. This success was driven by deep consumer insights, purposeful innovation, premiumisation, strategic portfolio management, enhanced distribution, and superior execution.
ITC’s FMCG businesses recorded segment revenue of Rs 20,966.83 crores representing an increase of 9.6 per cent over the previous year. Segment EBITDA for the year registered a growth of 19.7 per cent to Rs 2,338.50 crores with margins improving by 94 bps to 11.2 per cent on the back of premiumisation, supply chain efficiency, agile cost management and judicious pricing actions in spite of the gestation costs of new initiatives.
A consumer-centric approach, driven by purpose-led brands and a future-ready portfolio including value-added adjacencies backed by agility in execution, remains at the core of ITC’s strategy to rapidly scale up the FMCG Businesses.
Over 100 new products anchored on the vectors of health, nutrition, hygiene, protection, care, convenience, on-the-go, indulgence etc., were introduced across target markets during the year, leveraging the R&D platforms of ITC’s Life Sciences and Technology Centre (LSTC) and agile product development teams across businesses.
Digital technologies including Industry 4.0, Advanced Analytics, Big Data and Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) continue to be deployed towards strengthening ITC’s real-time operations and execution platform, enhancing productivity, driving efficiency and cost agility. Strategic investments have been stepped up to build platforms of insights by harmonising and integrating large and isolated datasets powered by AI/ML technologies and ‘human-centred design’ and visualisation tools.
ITC remains focused on rapidly scaling up the FMCG businesses. It is pertinent to note that the chosen categories, which are largely characterised by low household penetration levels and/or low per capita consumption, offer significant headroom for long-term growth. This is borne out by several reports which highlight that ITC’s total addressable market expansion potential is amongst the highest in the Indian FMCG space. ITC’s growth strategy includes expanding into value-added categories and leveraging over 25 powerful brands for extensions. Examples include Aashirvaad in dairy and spices, Sunfeast in dairy beverages, Bingo! in namkeens, ITC Master Chef in frozen snacks, Classmate in writing instruments and Savlon in sanitisers. The FMCG segment also focuses on strategic investments in future categories and value-accretive acquisitions and collaborations.
ITC’s FMCG brands have achieved market leadership in several categories, such as Aashirvaad in branded atta, Bingo! in snack foods, Sunfeast in cream biscuits and Classmate in writing instruments. The businesses are expanding their export footprint, reaching over 70 countries, and leveraging the PLI scheme to scale up exports in biscuits, snacks, dairy and ready-to-eat categories. ITC is also exploring growth opportunities in nearby markets.
