Comments
Strong rural consumption trends and revival in personal- and home-care categories were among factors that aided the FMCG sector get back into the positive growth territory in the July-September quarter.
Value growth for the sector was pegged at 1.6 per cent in the quarter compared to the same period last year, according to Nielsen, after the sector witnessed a sharp de-growth of -18.7 per cent in the April-June quarter.
The sector recorded a growth of 10.6 per cent in rural India in terms of value in the third quarter. This was due to a good harvest aided by a normal monsoon, reverse migration and the government’s stimulus measures. For instance: an increase in the allocation for MGNREGA, the rural job guarantee scheme, led to an 11 per cent increase in average wages and 83 lakh new households were added to the scheme. An increase in the purchasing power saw rural consumption outpace urban consumption in categories such as packaged staples, convenience foods, grooming products, and home/personal hygiene, in the July-September quarter, the report said.
Consumer durables, FMCG companies on recovery path
But despite the greenshoots in the July-September period, the FMCG sector is expected to end the pandemic year with a degrowth in the range of -1 per cent to -3 per cent due to various macro-economic conditions, it said.
Across the country, while consumers continued to spend on staples, personal/home care also witnessed recovery trends. The non-food categories were seen reviving, indicating a move towards normalcy, Nielsen said.
With shrinking wallets, consumers continued to prefer affordable offerings especially in the food categories. But thethe premium category is also reviving slowly, post the drop in the second quarter, it said. At the same time, higher rural population and lower incidence of Covid-19 pandemic helped East and North regions post better recovery compared to West and South.
This is the third time that the research and insights firm has revised its annual growth forecast for the FMCG industry this year.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.