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P&G Hygiene and Health Care Ltd (PGHHCL), which sells Whisper, Vicks and Old Spice, on Thursday, said that rural demand is showing signs of healthy recovery but urban consumption continues to witness challenges. Maintaining a cautiously optimistic outlook, the company’s leadership added that evolving global trade policies remain a key monitorable, which is expected to impact inflation and demand.
Speaking at an investor call, Mrinalini Srinivasan, CFO, PGHHCL, said, “With regards to demand within the FMCG industry, trends continue to evolve. While the non-food inflation continues to stay below RBI’s medium-term target of 4 per cent, consumer consumption trends are still shifting. With healthier monsoons last year and rural wages picking up, rural demand is showing signs of healthy recovery.”
“On the contrary, urban India continues to face financial challenges. While the government has announced interventions in the Budget, we expect the impact of these on urban consumption to take some time. Hence, in the near term, we anticipate some of these challenges to continue. However, we remain confident in the dynamic and integrated nature of our strategy to help us navigate the difficulties and continue to drive sustained, balanced results,” she said while responding to a businessline query.
Balanced growth
PGHHCL said it has seen “balanced” growth in the past fiscal year in both the feminine care and personal healthcare segments. Srinivasan said the company sees “significant opportunity” for growth both in terms of consumption and innovation while focusing on growing household penetration. Procter & Gamble operates in India through various subsidiaries which house its various businesses vertical.
V Kumar, MD & CEO, P&G India, said that the company has developed a strong “productivity” muscle. “Specifically last year, through our productivity interventions, PGHHCL achieved savings of over 93 crores,…we leverage data across all channels to create a smart assortment that ensures the right portfolio of our products is readily available at the right stores,” he added. The FMCG major has added one million new outlets in the past three years in terms of distribution expansion.
The FMCG major said it is continuing to focus on the next phase of its supply chain optimisation, seamlessly integrating the flow from suppliers to customers and extending to retail shelves.” This proactive approach allows us to efficiently plan raw material purchases, production, distribution, ensuring that orders are delivered in full and on time,” Kumar said.
Meanwhile, Srinivasan said that the company’s structural margins have improved significantly year-on-year. “This year, specifically, despite about a mid single digit cost inflation across material and manpower and a choiceful investment in advertising and promotion towards category growth—we have still been able to improve our net margin by about 60 basis points. This is driven by our deliberate efforts on productivity across all cost buckets, as well as innovation in the premium segments to enable consumers to trade up in line with their aspirations,” she added.
Published on June 12, 2025
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