Panasonic to focus on beauty-care items; create new div

Japanese consumer durables firm Panasonic today said it will aggressively focus this year on its personal and beauty care products for which a new division will be launched.

"Personal care and beauty products business is minuscule for us at present. This year, Panasonic is quite aggressive on marketing and building our brand in this category," Panasonic India General Manager (Marketing) Sahiba Kidwai told PTI.

Panasonic has been selling beauty care products like hair dryers and stylers for the last two years.

The company said it has been researching on the estimated Rs 40-crore branded consumer personal-care products market and has decided to launch a separate division within the company to look after the category.

"A team from Japan has been spending time researching the market for sometime now on the kind of new products it can bring for India. Later this year, a totally new division will be formed in India to look after the personal care category," she said. At present, personal care products come under the home appliances division of the company.

Kidwai said the company has also lined up various marketing activities to promote its products.

While it has already tied up with celebrity hair designer Sylvie to promote its products, the company is also in talks with various beauty service providers like VLCC and Habibs for its branding activities.

Besides, it is also in talks with several Bollywood actress to be the brand ambassador for the category.

Kidwai, however, did not disclose the names of the actresses it is currently talks with and the kind of marketing budget it has earmarked for the category this year.