Unilever bets top dollar on India, US for growth

Mumbai: Unilever chief executive officer Fernando Fernandez said the consumer goods firm will invest disproportionately in two of its largest markets – the US and India – to ensure the units there get benefits of the parent’s scale, advantage and portfolio footprint to deliver volume growth that is above the group average.

India is the second-biggest market for Unilever, after the US, accounting for 12% of the British multinational’s global sales. Growth rate at the India unit, Hindustan Unilever where new CEO Priya Nair takes charge Friday, tapered off over the past two year, as consumers tightened their budget amid inflationary pressures.

“Momentum is building in India where we have recently appointed a new head of the business, Priya Nair, who takes over after having successfully led our global beauty and wellbeing business,” Fernandez said during Unilever’s earnings call on Thursday. “Priya combines a deep understanding of our home and personal care business in India that she successfully ran for many years with the knowledge of international markets that is necessary to keep our portfolio in tune with the significant consumer needs and channel shifts already visible in the market,” he added.

The change of guard at the India unit comes nearly five months after Unilever named Fernandez, then its finance chief, to replace chief executive Hein Schumacher who was ousted within a year and a half at the helm, to speed up the company’s turnaround. At HUL, Nair takes over from Rohit Jawa, who had the shortest stint among all CEOs at the company.

With the slowdown in China, everybody has rediscovered India, Unilever had said earlier, as its position in the country remained exceptional amid slowing global markets.

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Fernandez said it sees an acceleration of sales in India, gaining market share and growing rapidly in new channels such as quick commerce. The company expects the market to grow faster in the second half of the calendar year than the first.”If you actually see the market growth in the last 12 weeks, we see an improvement. There’s also been a lot of work which has happened in terms of the portfolio transformation, where we are actually investing behind the market makers beyond the core portfolio. When we add up all of this, we’ve started to see a step up in volume,” said Srinivas Phatak, acting CFO, Unilever. The company has been investing in core and future formats and has seen ecommerce sales growing double digit, with quick commerce channels also doubling the business, he said. “As we look at this growth opportunity, we feel quite confident and comfortable with the India growth trajectory; we will expect this to do well,” he said.

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