industry

Toothpaste offers Patanjali some relief as it falters in herbal war


MUMBAI: Latest data on consumer goods show yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved has lost market shares in nearly all categories but toothpaste over the past year as rivals rolled out herbal brands after seeing a sharp consumer shift towards natural products.

Patanjali’s market shares in key categories including detergents, hair care, soaps and noodles in the year to July were lower than in the year ago period, latest Nielsen data sourced from industry officials indicated. Patanjali, which had challenged multinationals’ dominance in the consumer segment, also saw its overall sales decline in FY18-19.

The slowdown of Patanjali came initially on trade disruptions caused by the GST regime two years ago and then strong competition from large companies who shored up their portfolio with own ayurvedic offerings.

“They faced distribution turmoil soon after GST as they were not equipped with handling return of goods. Also, many companies launched natural variants as well as matched prices, which impacted Patanjali, which had limited distribution network compared to established firms,” said Abneesh Roy, executive vice-president of institutional equities, at Edelweiss Research.

About 60% of all new launches in 2018 were in the natural space, a 49% jump from two years ago, a recent Kantar report said.

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At present, Patanjali has more than 200,000 sales counters and about 100 Patanjali mega stores. In addition, it has its own online sale portal and more than 1,500 Patanjali chikitsalayas, 5,000 arogya centres and 25,000 swadeshi centres.

For a company that started as a small pharmacy in 1997, Patanjali launched more than two dozen mainstream FMCG products — from toothpastes, shampoos, and other personal care products to modern convenience foods such as cornflakes and instant noodles and notched up sales of Rs 10,500 crore by 2017. However, sales fell 10% to Rs 8,135 crore in the year to March 2018, while it registered sales of Rs 4,701 crore in first nine months of FY19, according to provisional data by CARE Ratings.

Market leader Hindustan Unilever has relaunched the Lever Ayush brand of ayurvedic personal care products, acquired Indulekha haircare brand, and launched Citra skincare brand to spruce up its presence in the naturals space.





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