Unilever now has a portfolio of super-premium brands that will travel into India at the right time when the market develops, Fernando Fernandez says
Highlighting that the company was late to capitalise the boom in the Chinese market, Fernando Fernandez, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Unilever, has said that the company will not make the same mistakes in India has is getting ready to introduce more of its global prestige home and personal care (HPC) brands in the country.
“We were late to the China party, we will not be late to the India party,” Fernandez said at the Deutsche Bank Global Consumer Conference in Paris. After combining its foods business with McCormick, the company is shifting to a HPC pure play strategy globally.
The global chief executive said that the company is betting on India to become a large exponential growth opportunity of the next decade. Unilever is increasing its focus on premium brands through strategic capital allocation and acquisitions.
“We now have a portfolio of super-premium brands that will travel into India at the right time when the market develops,” he added. The company gets 38 per cent of its turnover from the US and the India market. “We expect this to go to 40, 45 per cent in the next few years,” he noted.
He added that the company has a significant percentage of its business in the US developing portfolio that will travel internationally. He emphasised that 40 per cent of the company’s prestige business is already international. The India focus comes as the company looks to not repeat the mistakes that it did in China. The company was slower to build a meaningful presence in the prestige categories in the Chinese market.
Increasing The India Focus
Highlighting that the Indian business lost a bit of market share to rivals over the past few years, Fernandez earlier said that the top priority for Hindustan Unilever’s (HUL) Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Priya Nair is to regain the lost ground.
In a Barclays fireside chat, Fernandez noted that Nair’s topmost focus is on ensuring that the company’s portfolio is future-fit. He added that India, which contributes about 16 to 17 per cent of Unilever’s global business, is a long-term competitive advantage and he is very bullish on the country.
“The number one priority of Priya is to ensure that the portfolio is future-fit and the execution is flawless, as it has been in the past. I believe that we lost a bit of our way for a couple of years but I feel we are improving now. I am very, very bullish about India,” he pointed out.
