GCPL expects 25-40% sales growth from newly launched products

Homegrown FMCG player Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) expects 25-40 per cent of its growth coming in from new products across categories, a top company official has said.

"We are looking at 25-40 per cent of this year's growth coming through new product development. New product development is a hallmark of our strategy and this year the paddle has gone further up. We will have around seven to nine launches this year. The innovation focus will be even more aggressive this year and lot of investment has gone behind them across all categories," GCPL India and SAARC chief executive officer Sunil Kataria told PTI.

With an aim to disrupt the market, the company today launched a powder to liquid handwash under its Protekt brand priced at Rs 15 for a pouch and a combi-pack priced at Rs 35.

"It (liquid handwash) is very small for us right now. Our aspiration is, in four years (it should be) Rs 500 crore and in two years Rs 200 crore. Once it reaches that level, it will be a meaningful part of our portfolio," he said.

The second largest player in the soap category has a single digit market share in the liquid handwash segment at present, where the market size is Rs 740 crore, growing at 15 per cent.

The personal wash care market in the country is pegged at Rs 18,400 crore, largely dominated by soaps and the market estimate for handwashing soaps stands at Rs 8,000 crore.

"We found that consumers found the price of liquid handwash much higher to their soaps. Soaps today are priced almost 40 per cent lower than liquid handwash. Also, liquid hand wash has barriers in terms of reach as it is difficult to transport, and freight cost is higher," Kataria explained.

The average price of handwash in the country is Rs 57, while the average cost of a soap is Rs 23, he said.

In terms of reach, soaps are distributed through 80 lakh outlets compared to liquid handwash's 8.5 lakh outlets.

"We will ride up the soap distribution and we want every soap user to start using liquid handwash. We will be leveraging Godrej No 1 and Cinthol's soap reach across the country," he added.

Asked if the new product could lead to cannibalisation, he said, "right now the market share we play in is small. It is not that we have a very large business which is at stake. Secondly, if you are going to create a disruption and change the growth of the category itself, I think the choice should be with consumer. I expect the gains from the category explosion to be so big that cannibalisation, even if it happens, will be small in front of that."