Rural growth of personal-care items slower than in cities

In a striking reversal of trend, rural consumption of personal care items, though still larger, has grown slower than that of cities over the past five years, according to National Sample Survey (NSS) figures for 2009 (washing soaps/sodas were put at Rs 17,000 crore, but have been left out of this reckoning because no separate figure for detergents was available). Practically all households now use bath soap (Rs 12,000 crore). Hair oil and shampoo (Rs 8,200 crore) and toothbrushes and toothpastes (Rs 6,800 crore), too, will soon find themselves in this category.

Correspondingly, for all these items strategy will shift from part-foot-in-the-door aimed at increasing penetration to strategies exclusively aimed at getting people to increase use and move up the value or price chain.

The star performers are powder and snow cream (Rs 6,500 crore), which have grown at a compound annual rate of almost 20 per cent over the past five years (twice the rate for the personal care category as a whole); and sanitary napkins (Rs 1,600 crore), demand for which is yet to pick up in rural areas, are now used by more than 25 per cent of urban households. Though almost half of the housheholds now use shaving blades and razors, few use shaving cream in either rural or urban India.

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