Comments
Competition is getting stronger in the ₹7,500-crore chocolate category with Hershey entering the premium end and market leader, Mondelez responding almost immediately with a new premium variant.
A day after Hershey launched its brand of Brookside, Mondelez introduced a new variant under Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk Oreo.
“While we respect competition, we have held on to a 65 per cent market share for many years and are used to global competition. We understand Indian consumers and have presence in all the segments today. Now we want to strengthen our premium portfolio with differentiated taste by combining chocolate with biscuit by bringing Oreo with Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk as a new premium variant in our chocolate portfolio,’’ says Prashant Peres, Director, Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India.
As for Hershey, since the time it floated its own subsidiary, it has been steadily increasing its portfolio and it may be matter of time before it brings in its iconic brands like Hershey’s Reese’s and Hershey’s Kisses.
“Hershey is a serious and determined player, intent on making a mark in the Indian chocolate market. Being the market leader, Mondelez is responding and it must have been a well planned strategy to keep the new variant in its armory and launch it along with its competitor’s entry. But competition will only make the category get bigger with more investments behind refrigeration and distribution,’’observes Jagdeep Kapoor, Managing Director, Samsika Marketing Consultants.
But Mondelez insists that its new variant was a planned one, as winter is the right time to launch new brands.
“Our Cadbury Dairy Milk portfolio has been growing on the back of sub-brand like Silk with a 41 per cent share. Most of the incremental growth has been due to Silk,’’ added Peres. As for Oreo, it has already garnered 18 per cent share in the ₹2,000-crore premium biscuit segment.
Meanwhile with demonetisation, there has been slowdown in the chocolate category with single digit growth in November.
“There has been a slowdown with low single-digit growth in November. Being the market leader, we want the category to go back to double digit growth with a CAGR of 10-15 per cent that it has had for the past five years.’’ added Peres.
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.