L'Oréal, Colgate eye opportunity as preference for premium products rises in India

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI : Large consumer goods makers such as L'oreal and Colgate-Palmolive Co pointed to a rising preference for premium products in India as an opportunity that could drive growth for the companies in the country in the coming years.

However, both the companies said India continues to remain a value market with consumers of oral care and beauty products still entering the market often buying lower-priced options or using these products less frequently. “India as a country [is] on its way to being the third-largest economy by 2030, and [is] the fastest-growing economy among the larger economies in the world.

And while that has slowed down, it's slated to be the fastest," said Prabha Narasimhan, MD & CEO, Colgate-Palmolive (India), at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York Conference in Florida, US. India presents a "very, very attractive" opportunity for consumer packaged goods companies, according to Narasimhan, who pointed to India having 200 million high- and upper-middle-income households by 2030, coupled with the growth of modern retail and e-commerce.

“These, coupled with each other, also leads to a change in the retail environment, pushing more and more towards the self-service and the e-commerce type of retail, which is always good for a company like ours because it allows for discovery of products, which then makes it share-accretive, margin-accretive, premiumization accretive," she added. In FY24, Colgate-Palmolive (India), the maker of Colgate toothpaste and Palmolive body wash, reported sales of ₹5,644.18 crore and a profit of ₹1,323 crore.

Its products reach 272 million households in India via 7 million outlets. Colgate is the largest oral care brand in the country.