The Hindu Business Line : `Hair colourants add lustre to personal care market'

HAIR colourants, baby care and feminine hygiene have accelerated growth in the Indian personal care market according to a study done by AC Nielsen titled, `What's hot around the globe: Insights on growth and personal care'.

Mr Anmol Sherpa, coordinator for AC Nielsen Global Services in India claims that in India it is hair colourants, which have proved to be hair care market's crowing glory. The Indian hair care market has witnessed a strong growth within the personal care market growing by 3.8 per cent over the previous year, as per the study.

"While hair conditioners and colourants were earlier restricted to the affluent, occasion linked beautification they have become a way of life today. In addition, emerging product areas such as colourants are looked at as substitutes for hair dye to counter greying hair. For the category, this reflects a paradigm shift in terms of moving from a mere value addition to the hair care routine to being a category that possesses a definite benefit proposition," says Mr Sherpa.

According to the report, hair colourants indicate strong growth trends with a year on year growth of 8 per cent. "This is notable given that India, unlike any market abroad, has a large proportion of consumers whose hair care expenditure also includes hair oils," observes Mr Sherpa.

Last year, hair oils have shown a growth of 6 per cent over the previous year with rural India seeing a faster growth rate (11 per cent) than urban India (4 per cent).

Meanwhile the baby care category has been growing stronger in spite of being in a nascent stage in India. The diaper category reflects the coming together of multiple factors that have pushed its growth upward.

India's current phase of demographic transition, a burgeoning population, price erosion across FMCG categories and rising urban affluence has combined to ensure an acceleration of growth for this category.

While developed markets talk of growth in changing mats/swimming/trainer pants within this category, these are segments, which are still not available to Indian mothers. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the category is growing (6 per cent) indicating future potential. Growth is even more pronounced if one looks only at urban India.

Feminine hygiene has also grown substantially by expanding its user base, increasing affordability and gaining greater width of distribution. Over the last year the sanitary napkins category has registered a volume growth of 11 per cent in 2004. This has been fuelled primarily by the category's increasing contribution and faster growth within rural India.

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