Unilever 'will disproportionately' invest in India, says Fernandez

Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez said India and the US will get disproportionate investments with focus on beauty, wellbeing and personal care under HUL's new leadership

Unilever will “disproportionately invest” in India, said Fernando Fernandez, global chief executive officer (CEO) of the consumer goods giant, doubling down in the company’s second largest market by revenue, after the United States.

 

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) is one of India's largest fast-moving consumer goods companies that makes skincare, haircare, fabric care, nutrition, and home care products.

 

“You can expect that we will go for more beauty, more wellbeing, more personal care [products]. We will disproportionately invest behind the US and India. We will play to win, and we will do it, making desire at scale the core of our strategy,” Fernandez said in Mumbai at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025. Unilever will not invest a “single penny” for mergers and acquisitions outside the US and India, he said.

 

 

Priya Nair, HUL’s new managing director and CEO, has the global experience needed for the role. “Priya is a person I trust 100 per cent. I brought her as my chief marketing officer of beauty and wellbeing when I ran the division. Then she succeeded me in the beauty [division]. I believe Priya will be a very important leader for Hindustan Unilever because she knows India deeply. She ran their home, beauty and personal care [divisions],” he said.

 

“But I believe differently to our previous leaders in India, she has generated a view of the world with her experience as a global leader that is very important for the India of the future.”

 

Fernandez said HUL has brought in Rajneet Kohli (former CEO of Britannia Industries) and Niranjan Gupta (chief financial officer, Hero MotoCorp) to strengthen leadership.

 

“We have put the top-notch team there and we are very confident about the future,” he added.

 

Fernandez said India’s real GDP growth would be at 5-6 per cent and he expects that in the long run, HUL’s volume growth should align with those levels.

 

The maker of Lux soaps is focused on maintaining consistent growth at the levels it delivered in the April–June quarter, when HUL recorded 4 per cent volume growth.

 

“The government has taken some important measures. The central bank also. So there has been some stimulus in the economy, there is food deflation in India. That is important because it puts money in the pockets of hundreds of millions of people,” he said.

 

Fernandez said he wants one influencer in every ZIP code in India, noting the country has 15,000 codes and the company has 12,000 influencers.