Vineet Agrawal of Wipro Consumer Care
With interests spanning personal care, home care and home lighting, and a recent move into packaged foods, India’s low category penetration offers significant headroom for growth, Agrawal said. While Wipro Consumer’s debt-free balance sheet provides room to pursue acquisitions, these will be selective and strategic, he said, adding that organic growth will remain the key driver.
The company has already started to build its food portfolio. Following the acquisition of Nirapara in Kerala a year ago, it announced plans to acquire Kerala-based packaged food brand Brahmins in 2023; this marked its entry into spices and ready-to-cook foods.
The manufacturer of Santoor soap reported the following revenue: ₹10,625 crore in 2024-25, up 3.4% annually. Edited excerpts from an interview with Mint to follow.
How has the FMCG landscape changed over your career and where do you see it heading?
There has been a huge change. Channels have evolved from just general commerce to modern commerce, e-commerce, and now flash commerce. The media is also fragmented. Once upon a time, we had very few advertising channels; today there are many of these, making media planning much more complex.
Consumer expectations have increased rapidly. With the spread of television and e-commerce, the expectations of rural areas have now become similar to urban expectations. Categories that were once urban-focused are now expanding into rural markets as awareness and reach has improved. E-commerce, in particular, has significantly expanded product reach.
You increased your investments in packaged food. Is Wipro Consumer positioning itself as a pure home consumption company?
We’re still pretty small, so to grow quickly we need to look at multiple verticals like personal care, home care, food. We cannot rely on just one category. We need to launch the products well and get a share from all of them.
India offers enormous headroom. Penetration levels in many categories are still very low. The penetration of fabric softener is barely 4% in households, but we are the second player, which shows how underdeveloped the category is. Hand washing is another example; It is approximately a small business. ₹200 crore for us, but we are in second place there too. These categories can grow rapidly; This is why India’s growth story is so interesting.
Why has food come into sharper focus in the last two to three years?
Foods are not pursued at the expense of other businesses. It is a separate growth engine. The category itself is huge. toilet soaps in india ₹26,000–27,000 crore market, spices are around ₹70,000 crore. Snacks are different ₹70,000 crore category.
Even gaining share in a few states can translate into meaningful scale. There is a clear transition from unorganized to organized players in the food industry, and we believe that we can play a strong role in this transition.
What will drive growth? Organic expansion, acquisitions or investments?
We are fortunate to be a strong cash-generating organization with a debt-free balance sheet, so capital has never been a constraint for us. We generate an operating margin of approximately 13% each year, which means: ₹1,200-1,300 crore cash annually. Since we don’t pay dividends, this gives us a healthy war chest to pursue opportunities.
However, acquisitions will continue to be strategic rather than opportunistic. Their purpose is not only to generate revenue, but also to help us enter categories or geographies faster. For example, the 2020 acquisition of Canway in South Africa gave us a foothold in Africa, and that business has grown threefold since FY20. It would take a long time to get into spices organically in foods, so acquiring Brahmins and Nirapara gave us an immediate presence in spices and ready-to-cook breakfast items in Kerala.
But organic growth remains essential. If we cannot deliver, the board will not support us. Acquisitions are incremental. Our star artists this year were hand washing and fabric softeners at Santoor.
What is your goal for the next 5-10 years?
We do not give exact figures for 3-5 years ahead. But we always say that we need to grow much faster than the industry, in all geographies and all categories.
There is a huge gap for consumption growth in India and Southeast Asia. The sky is the limit, per capita consumption may increase and we must remain ambitious and grow disproportionately.
What does 2026 look like from a demand perspective (volume and pricing)?
This quarter looks like a strong volume growth quarter. We expect high single-digit volume growth in India, possibly double-digit growth if conditions remain favourable. Volumes are clearly coming back.
It is difficult to pinpoint a single cause; GST cuts, a good monsoon and income tax benefits may all be contributing. There is noticeable positivity this quarter and we hope this continues. Santoor brand today among ₹2,500 crore and ₹2,900 crore in soaps, body lotions and related products.
Was September a tough quarter for many companies due to GST changes? How did it work out for you?
All in all, it was pretty good. Many people suffered due to GST changes in September. But we managed the transition pretty well. Our India FMCG business grew by approximately 9.3% in the September quarter. We expect to achieve high single-digit volume growth in the third quarter. Things are looking positive and the GST transition is behind us.
What do you see in rural and urban demand?
Urban low-income consumers continue to face more stress than other segments. While it is too early to measure this, the urban poor have been under greater pressure than rural consumers or the urban rich over the past few quarters.
What are the biggest headwinds in India’s consumption story?
Per capita consumption remains low in India. Even in a mature category such as toilet soaps, per capita usage in cities is almost three times that in rural areas. If consumption shifts towards hand washing, fabric softeners or packaged foods, the gap becomes huge.
Acquisitions are an addition; Organic growth is the foundation.
Second, consumers want better products and better lifestyles. Thirdly, we have seen good GDP growth numbers, good monsoon, cuts in GST rates, income tax cuts being passed on and all these are helping to support demand. Overall, India’s growth story is huge.
