New products from Godrej stable likely

New products from Godrej stable likely

New Delhi, Oct 7: Brand acquisitions and new product launches will drive growth at Godrej Soaps Ltd this year, Adi Godrej, Godrej Soaps chairman told The Financial Express here today. According to Godrej, new products will account for 20 per cent of the company's total turnover for the year 2000-2001. The company has already launched two new soap brandsNikhar and FairGlow in the current financial year. This week, it launched another soap brand AllCare, positioned as an antiseptic soap with moisturiser.

From FairGlow alone, Godrej expects a sales turnover of Rs 80 crore by the end of the current financial year. ``FairGlow is going very strong and we expect it to be a Rs 80 crore brand,'' Godrej said. The company has kept aside an ad budget of Rs 20 crore for the brand.

The soap was introduced to address the `fairness' category hitherto dominated by creams and was an instant hit according to Godrej. As a natural add-on to its Fairglow soap, the company later launched its FairGlow Fairness Cream. Godrej Soaps is open to acquisitions, Godrej said, but added that nothing's on the anvil since there were not many brands on offer at the moment.

``The last brand we acquired was Ezee and since then there have not been many brands going in the market,'' Godrej said. While reiterating that his company would continue to come up with a slew of new products and brands in the next few years besides investing in the existing ones, Godrej projected that new products would contribute 20 per cent to the Godrej Soaps Ltd total sales turnover in this fiscal year. ``By the end of next two to three years we'll have more than enough products for our distribution channel to handle,'' Godrej said.

As for the future strategy in toilet soaps, Godrej will continue to play safe by focusing on the popular and sub-popular segments of the market positioned at the price-concsious Indian consumer. The company does not plan to launch any new products in the premium segment inspite of the fact that the segment has seen a double digit growth lately as against last year when downtrading was affecting sales in the premium end. `We're pretty comfortable with Cinthol in the premium end and we have no plans to introduce products in this segment,'' Godrej said. The company is currently shelling out Rs 9 crore on the brand which is one of the sponsors of Star Plus'mega show Kaun Banega Crorepati. The sales turnover of Cinthol is about Rs 150 crore.

Godrej also ruled out any possibility of his company to get into joint ventures in the near future. Godrej also said the company is deemphasising on foods business and hence may even divest its stake in Godrej Pillsbury, the Rs 55 crore joint venture in which the Godrej group holds a 49 per cent stake.