Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting (WCCL) will focus on growing its brands rather than acquiring more brands.

“Acquisition costs are going up and we now want to do a good job of brand extensions,” said Mr Vineet Agrawal, President, WCCL. He said that all the brands the company acquired in the last few years, such as Yardley and Unza, have performed well.

In terms of growth of various brands during the fiscal he said that Yardley grew 60 per cent, Unza over 20 per cent, Santoor became the No. 1 brand in Southern and Western markets combined with a market share of 13.9 per cent — all trends that contributed to the 23 per cent growth in the consumer care division.

Santoor with an all-India market share of 8.4 per cent is the No. 3 brand in the country. “The market leaders Lifebuoy and Lux are at about 14 per cent market share and it will take us quite some time to reach there as brand shift is not easy in this category.”

Yardley, he said, had outperformed its expectations and is now increasingly appealing to the youth category.

In the commercial lighting business, WCCL focussed on building its LED range. As a result, Wipro's LEDs now light up 100 of the 170 green buildings in the country, he pointed out.

WCCL, the FMCG arm Wipro, posted revenues of Rs 3,340 crore in fiscal 2011-12 contributing 9 per cent to the IT major's total revenues.

>anjali@thehindu.co.in

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