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Jyothy Labs is pitting itself against HUL in the ₹2,500-crore dishwash category by extending Pril as a soap bar.
HUL’s Vim, which rules the segment with a 65 per cent share, will now have to contend with the might of both Exo and Pril in the bar segment.
“We were losing out in the bar segment to Vim cakes since Pril was primarily in the liquid dishwash category. This made us scale up our Pril bars along with the existing Exo bars’, and both will be priced at ₹49. But Pril will have a premium packaging with a rectangular shape to compete with Vim bars in the dishwash segment,’’ said K Ulhas Kamath, Joint Managing Director, Jyothy Labs.
Currently, Pril has a 3-4 per cent share, while Exo has a 11 per cent share in the dishwash category. With its 500-gm Pril bars, Jyothy plans to take its share of the dishwash segment from 15 per cent to 25 per cent.
Exo is among the largest brands in Jyothy’s portfolio with a turnover of ₹400 crore (it has actress Shipla Shetty as brand ambassador) while Pril, a licensed brand from Henkel, has a much smaller turnover at ₹120 crore.
Its flagship brand Ujala , which created the fabric whitener category, recorded its highest growth at 10 per cent in the first quarter.
Kamath said there were plans to to take Ujala’s extensions like Crisp & Shine, which have been restricted to Kerala and Tamil Nadu, into other southern States such as Andhra Pradesh.
Having increased its capex this year to ₹50 crore, the homegrown FMCG company is planning to set up more units in the North-East for its brands like Ujala, Maxo and Margo soap to avail of excise and income tax benefits.
“In the last five years, our capex has been between ₹15-20 crore, but now we are taking it up to ₹50 crore to get additional tax benefits. We already have a unit in Guwahati, but will have more units for our brands,’’ added Kamath.
For the ₹1,670 crore Jyothy Labs, the urban markets have been growing faster, at 16-17 per cent, while the rural markets have slowed down to about 6-7 per cent.
“We are expecting to grow at 12 per cent for the year and expect the rural markets to grow faster. While our categories like household insecticides have declined due to an extended summer, our soaps franchise under Margo made up for it and has done better,’’ added Kamath.
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