Mondelez International, known for brands such as Cadbury and Oreo, expects its India business to clock consistent “low double-digit” growth rates annually till 2030, playing a critical role in its global plans. The snacks major said it is focusing on making biscuits a sizeable business in India besides expanding the overall distribution to scale-up its portfolio’s availability especially in rural regions at low unit price points.

Speaking at a virtual roundtable, Dirk Van de Put, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mondelez International said, “India is one of our strongest businesses in the world. It’s now about $1.2 billion in revenues and in 2021 it grew by 21 per cent.” The company expects the India business to scale up faster to the next level with the potential to touch the $2 billion-mark by 2030.

Focus on biscuits segment

 “India will play a phenomenal role for us and we expect it to deliver sustained low double-digit growth per year till 2030. We have a significant market share in the chocolates segment in this market and continue to grow in this category leveraging on gifting, premium and low unit price opportunities. We are also quiet big in the cocoa beverages segment. Step- by-step we are scaling up our biscuits business, which is still very small, but we do want to have a significant business in biscuits in India,” he said. Its biscuits’ business in India is led by brands such as Oreo, which is already a $100 million-brand in the country.

The Mondelez CEO pointed out that with factors such as a younger demographics and growing disposable incomes, there is a huge headroom to grow the per capita consumption of snacks in the country. “It is an absolute priority for us to invest in the Indian market in manufacturing and infrastructure. There is always potential that we could acquire an Indian company,” he said.

 “We do believe there is a huge opportunity in developing rural markets and the ₹5 and ₹10 price points play an extremely important role to achieve that,” he added.

Inflationary pressures

On challenges of inflationary pressures, the company said that in emerging markets like India, it has been treading more carefully to ensure key price points of ₹5 and ₹10 remain unchanged and focus more on cost optimization and revenue measurement measures.

In response to a query on the impact on inflation due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Van de Put said that the two countries play a key role in a number of commodities, adding that if there are severe disruptions, costs can go up and there is also an “overall nervousness” around the world which might make the current inflation worse.

The company currently sells its products through more than 3 million stores in the country, contributing 80 per cent of the revenues and believes there is an opportunity to more than double the number of these outlets. “One of the strategic principles in emerging markets is to ensure our products are everywhere and enjoyed by everyone and India is the best example in the world on how to do that across millions of outlets and at the right price points,” he added.

Meanwhile, the company said that digital commerce channel is witnessing rapid expansion in India, contributing 3 per cent to the business, with factors such as the emergence of quick commerce. The company is also testing the D2C model through various initiatives across the world including India.

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