India is consumer giant Unilever's blueprint for emerging-market growth: CEO

Mumbai: Unilever chief executive Fernando Fernandez said India is the company's blueprint for emerging-market growth, betting its vast consumer base, rising incomes and changing consumption habits will give the country an expansion runway few other large markets can match.

"Many companies are discovering where India is on the map. We know the map of every zip code in India," Fernandez said at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference on Wednesday, describing India as the company's "blueprint" for emerging markets.

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"When you look at the next five years, it's probably the market that, for fast-moving consumer goods, shows the only large exponential growth potential," he said. India is Unilever's biggest emerging-market business, while emerging markets account for about 62% of group revenue. Fernandez said those markets have stronger long-term consumption drivers than developed economies, including population growth, urbanisation, rising wealth and greater female participation in the workforce.

He said the US and India, its two biggest markets, are the two countries where Unilever is allocating its entire annual acquisition budget of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion. The aim is to build premium brands in the two markets that can then be taken global. Fernandez sees the premiumisation opportunity at a more granular level in India.

"The biggest premiumisation opportunity in India, let's take the case of hair care, is to move consumers from one rupee sachet into two rupees a sachet," he said. The richest 5% of Indians, about 75 million people, have income per capita comparable to France, creating what he called a potential "France in beauty." "I believe that the portfolio that we have built in the US in particular is a portfolio that will travel into India at the right time," Fernandez said.

Hindustan Unilever managing director Priya Nair said five structural shifts are changing the market: the rise of Gen Z, more women entering the workforce, rapid digitisation, better roads and greater electrification and access to tap water.

"India's per-capita FMCG spending is only about $63," she said. About 70% of the population lives in rural areas and tier-four locations, 20% in small towns and 10% in cities. "Small towns are growing two times faster than average towns in the country," she said.

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India has about 377 million Gen Z consumers, while female workforce participation has risen from 25% to 40%, the maker of Dove and Rin said. "These consumers are changing everything about consumption in consumer products," she said. HUL's research found when a village becomes connected to a large town, it can produce a 30% delta in growth for company.

The company's granular understanding of India also extends to how it markets its brands. HUL already works with about 30,000 creators in India, Nair said, while using AI to increase the amount of content it can create and improve media effectiveness. "Making them younger, more contemporary, is all the work we're doing," she said. The same granular approach is being applied to distribution. General trade remains dominant, Nair said, but specialist stores, modern trade and quick commerce are creating new routes to consumers.

"Our margins are better in quick commerce versus modern trade versus general trade," she said.

The structural opportunity comes with a more immediate challenge: inflation. With oil at $100 a barrel and input costs rising, HUL expects to manage pricing carefully. Nair said company has dealt with inflationary and deflationary cycles before and uses savings programmes and portfolio of brands at different price points to manage consumers trading down or up.