In an interview, Siddhartha Roy says that men’s grooming continues to offer significant growth headroom, with non-metros adopting premium grooming products at a faster pace than metros
Fragrances are emerging as a major growth driver for Beardo, with the category witnessing rapid expansion as consumers seek scents that reflect their personalities and lifestyles. Siddhartha Roy, Chief Business Officer, Beardo, said the fragrance category is “exploding”, driven by a growing focus on quality.
In an interview with BW Retail World, Roy emphasised that men’s grooming continues to offer significant growth headroom, with tier 2 and 3 markets adopting premium grooming products at a faster pace than metros. He also noted that while digital channels remain important, physical touchpoints across general trade, modern trade and brand stores continue to play a critical role in consumer engagement. While exports remain an opportunity, Roy said that the immediate focus remains on capturing the substantial growth potential in the domestic market. Edited Excerpts:
Beardo was built on the back of the beard-grooming category, but categories inevitably mature. Looking at the business today, where is incremental growth coming from, and which consumer need-state do you believe remains underserved in men’s personal care?
There are multiple parts to this. One is that the category is still underpenetrated because if you see the per capita consumption versus any mature FMCG category, if you look at the total revenue contribution of say a category like beard, there is a huge journey that we have to still traverse. This we have seen from our own data also, that whenever we have invested in the category, the category keeps growing. So I think there is enough headroom to keep growing.
At the same time, we have realised that men’s grooming is not a particular product or a single category play. It is about being present in every single time of the day when a man needs some kind of grooming help, which is where we expanded our category.
We are into trimmers, we have fragrances and we have beard and hair styling. So it is a spectrum that you play in. The moment you do that, you have pretty much covered everything.
Fragrances have become one of the fastest-growing segments in personal care, particularly among younger consumers. How is the category performing for the company?
It is a fairly big category for us and keeps growing significantly for the business. What is happening is that the category itself is exploding in fragrances, because of a couple of reasons. One, the consumer has become more educated. They are looking for fragrances which match their personality, which match their vibe and also they look at quality.
One thing that happens in our case is that we do not compromise on the quality in order to provide a certain value. We believe in providing the right value at the highest quality, which always adds to our fragrance portfolio. This is why we keep growing year on year despite a lot of competition coming in. There is a huge headroom there as well.
The men’s grooming story was once concentrated in metros, but awareness has spread rapidly across smaller cities. Are tier 2 and 3 consumers following the same category adoption curve as metros, or are they leapfrogging directly into newer formats and products?
I would say faster. To give you an analogy, it is almost like how the mobile phone transition happened. In metros, people moved from landline to feature phones to smartphones. Then there was the tier 2, tier 3 India, which directly moved from landlines to smartphones.
It is that kind of category journey that we are seeing in men’s grooming or in certain beauty categories. Where people are going directly from mass to something which provides real value.
There is a whole value angle to it. Because as Indians, we are very conscious of what a product provides. The expectation is that the delivery of the product truth has to be rooted in the delivery of the promise that you are promising. That journey has been accelerated in tier 2 and 3 India, which is where growth is coming from.
Beardo is a digital-first brand at core. As the business scales, what does the ideal revenue mix look like between ecommerce, quick commerce, modern trade and general trade going ahead?
All four channels are equally important. One of the things that we have come to realise is that the consumer experiences your brand at multiple touch points. Ecommerce and D2C continue to be a significant contributor to our business. But at the same time, what has also happened is that, for example, we have our own stores, exclusive brand outlets, where the consumer experiences the brand and then they might go and buy it online or buy at the store as well.
These digital will never completely replace the physical touch points that we have had across the country. GT and MT and our own stores and kiosks continue to be a very important part of who we are as a brand.
Beardo has scaled nearly fourfold since FY21 and Marico has indicated that the brand has the potential to reach the Rs 500 crore revenue mark in the medium term. What are the key levers that will drive the next phase of growth?
We are a part of a listed organisation, so I will not be able to give you the exact numbers. We are on track. We continue to grow in a very healthy manner. And that is what I will be able to tell you. The grooming category continues to grow in double digits. The idea is to keep growing and go with the guidelines that we have already given.
Indian beauty and personal care brands are increasingly finding acceptance in overseas markets. How do you view the export opportunity for Beardo?
There is a play, but at this moment, we are seeing enough headroom and growth in India in the domestic market for us to really go big on exports. But we continue to explore as and when a good opportunity comes up, we start that business.
