After a steady expansion phase during 2007-12, ‘head-to-heel’ herbal wellness firm, The Himalaya Drug Company, is looking to increase its revenue to ₹1,500 crore in FY15 from ₹1,250 crore last year. Growing at a CAGR of 25 per cent over the last five years, Himalaya wants to enter the billion-dollar league by 2020. Business Line caught up with Philipe Haydon, CEO of the company’s India business, to find out how he intends to steer the company to the its goal line. Edited excerpts:

What is your game plan to achieve the $1-billion revenue target by 2020?

I handle India, Nepal and Bhutan and am responsible for bringing half a billion dollars to the table by 2020. Shailendra Malhotra, who is global CEO for the rest of the world, is responsible for the other half. I am betting on the winning combination of great people and great products to get us to $1 billion by 2020. We have ramped up staff (strength) and have 6,200 employees and expanded our product offering and distribution with over 9,000 distributors, which has resulted in increased penetration of the market. Our entire strategy is built around our relationships with 4,50,000 doctors. We use the equity we have built with doctors to get them to recommend our products to people.

What is the current composition of your revenue and how do you see it growing over the next six years?

At present, the pharma and personal care divisions contribute 38 per cent each, eight per cent comes from baby care, four per cent from animal health and the remaining 12 per cent from what we manufacture in India and in contract manufacturing units abroad that is sold to the rest of the world. In five years, I see personal care clearly overtaking pharma to be the number one revenue contributor. This is because it’s a much larger category and is relevant to a much larger consumer base. You don’t need to have a medical condition or be sick to buy products like soap, shampoo and toothpaste. We have also entered new categories – like oral care last year with the launch of four variants of toothpaste. More recently, we entered the ₹120-crore men’s face wash market with two variants.

Which of the four businesses will fuel growth for Himalaya in the next 12-24 months?

We are betting on baby care, which is growing at 100 per cent. We want to get to 10 per cent market share this fiscal. The route to achieving this is through paediatricians/gynaecologists who recommend it to patients.

We’re targeting ₹60 crore from Animal Health this fiscal, from a base of ₹30 crore, as we have ramped up our sales team from 80 to 300 people. We are getting into Aqua Care or shrimp farming in a big way. We will introduce a new range of offerings from the pharma division, such as products for diabetes, pregnancy/lactation, weight management, reformulated kids’ and adults’ health drinks as well as specialised nutrition for those who are bed-ridden with paralysis, stroke, on ventilators, etc.

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