Britannia Loses Market Share For Its Major Brands

Indians spend more on biscuits than on toothpastes, skin-care products, shampoos and instant noodles put together, and Parle Products has surged ahead of Britannia Industries to become a clear leader in the Rs 11,000-crore-plus market, say Nielsen data.

The country spent Rs 11,295 crore on biscuits in the 12 months ended March 2010 compared with Rs 2,300 crore on toothpastes, Rs 3,500 crore on skin-care products, Rs 2,400 crore on shampoos and Rs 1,300 crore on instant noodles. And in the first half of the current financial year, it has already spent Rs 6,320 crore on biscuits, according to The Nielsen Company, the country’s largest market researcher.

The largest piece of this big and growing cookie now belongs to Parle Products. The Mumbai-based, Rs 5,000-crore company, promoted by Vijay and Sharad Chauhan, has close to 45% share of the biscuits market while Nusli Wadia’s Britannia Industries has about 38% share.

For years, the two largest cookie makers were neck-and-neck with about 35% share each in the market.

Nielsen data shows that Good-Day’s share dropped from 31.6% in 2009-10 to 27.8% in the April-September period, while Parle 20-20’s share increased from 11.3% to 17.9% during the same period. Parle also managed to push its share in the Rs 3,312-crore glucose biscuit segment where Parle G now accounts for more than three-fourths of the category.

The share of Britannia’s Tiger glucose slipped from 12.2% in 2009-10 to 11.7% in April-September this year, while the share of the third significant player in the category, ITC’s Sunfeast glucose, remained constant at 8.8%
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In salted crackers, Britannia Time Pass is the only major brand that lost share, to 10.6% in the first half of current fiscal from 11.3% in the whole of last year, the Nielsen data shows.

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Parle surges ahead of Britannia to become leader in the Indian biscuit market - The Economic Times