Unilever to be Lifebuoy for growth in India business: CEO Fernando Fernandez

Time of India

25-04-2025

Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez
said the company remains confident about its growth prospects in
India
, highlighting the absence of any new headwinds and the positive impact of government incentives, tax relief, and lower inflation in food and oil. These factors, he said, will drive demand in the country, where the company remains focused on expansion.
"We have strong positions in home care and health where we will invest and accelerate. In some of our core areas, we have to address... which in the short term will really mean that we need to invest behind these brands. In some categories, we are seeing competitive intensity go up - and it happens," Fernandez told analysts during its earnings call.
"India is a consistent performer for us, has been gaining shares for the last three years and there is a lot to play for," said Fernandez.
HUL
, which owns Rin detergent, Lux soap and Sunsilk shampoo, is the country's largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company and its performance is considered a proxy for broader consumer sentiment. India is the second-biggest market for
Unilever
, accounting for 12% of global sales.
Fernandez said one of the issues with Unilever is that it is a federation of local and regional brands. "I want to attack that, building a more coherent and consistent global portfolio, making US and India, the two anchors of our portfolio, and radically simplifying our business from a geographical point of view, from a technology point of view, and from a processes point of view," said Fernandez, adding that it was very confident both on the growth profile as well as on the margin profile for India.
However, growth rate of its Indian business has tapered off over the past year with HUL sales growing 2% in FY25, as consumers tighten their budget amid inflationary pressures across categories. Unilever said it saw increased promotional intensity and price reductions in India by international competitors in the homecare segment during the March quarter, and it responded with price cuts of its laundry brands.
"The long-term economics of that market (India) prevail and we are well-positioned to do that. And in defending some of these categories, we will be unblinking. There is only one place that we need to address, which is food, and we will do that. When we look at it in its totality, I think this is a market where we will be unblinking in our defence and when we get our growth engine moving up, we know how to really make money here and how really to drive earnings ahead of growth," said Fernandez, who was earlier the company's chief financial officer, and took over as its CEO in March this year.
HUL said it has started addressing some of the challenges. For instance, it has tweaked the price and positioning of Horlicks to make it more contemporary, slashed prices in laundry, repositioned its largest soap brand Lifebuoy and expanded Glow and Lovely into newer sub-segments.
In an investor call on Thursday, HUL said it expects stronger market demand in the next few quarters and will be on the offensive, and "play to win" by increased investment in the segment of the future and innovations, which will mean growth over margins in the near term.
"That's the spirit, or what we are trying to do. Is there a price versus cost battle in a certain category? Yes. And we are going to unblinkingly defend and, in fact, go a step further. So, I think that's just to give you the mood and temperature of how we look at the business today, which is in a stronger, optimistic lens, and we do see the future six months gradually improving," Rohit Jawa, managing director at HUL, said during the investor call.