Global FMCG companies are sharpening their India strategies with an eye to expand their businesses and widening their reach in one of their key emerging markets.

At the recently held Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference, while Mondelez International said its ramping up distribution to scale up its profitable India business , Coca-Cola said it is focusing on a cluster approach to accelerate growth in the market.

Speaking at a the Barclays conference , Dirk Van de Put, Chairman & Chief Executive Office, Mondelez International, which is known for brands Cadbury and Oreo, said, “India is a universe of 9 million stores. We are now direct or indirect in about 3 million stores. Last year, we’ve 180,000 new stores.”

“We’ve added about 120,000 stores already in the first half of this year. India is even a bigger opportunity for us to keep on growing. It is profitable, so we sell well in those stores,” he stated.

“In India also, apart from getting into new stores, since we are mainly a chocolate player, we have to put what’s called visi-coolers, which keep the chocolate refrigerated. Since 2019, we’ve placed about 700,000 of these visi- coolers that go on the counter in the convenience stores or in the traditional stores,” the global Chief of the chocolate major added.

In a bid to continue growing penetration, Mondelez International also said that it will be careful with pricing strategies to protect key price points in emerging markets such as India and ensure its products are available to consumers that have “specific coinage availability.” The chocolate maker said it is witnessing cocoa prices coming down after the recent historical highs witnessed.

Beverage major Coca-Cola said it is focusing on “winning in many Indias” and is “segmenting the country in clusters. ”Speaking at the convention, Henrique Gnani Braun, Executive Vice President & President-International Development, Coca-Cola said, the beverage industry is still getting built in India which has low per capita consumption and high population.

He added that the company is investing in India for the long-term but also leveraging on the growth momentum in the short-term.

“ It is a market that is growing significantly, but the capabilities are not yet from industry point of view and from Coke system point of view at the level that we could actually capture every opportunity in a very granular way. we are segmenting the country in clusters and we truly believe that there will be parts of India that will accelerate that growth and that capability in a faster way than others,” Braun added.

Meanwhile, Unilever’s top management stated that India is just over that tipping point, when it comes to the middle class being ready to spend more, premiumisation is happening at an astounding pace and modern trade is booming. The company said it remains very bullish about the medium term for India. 

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