Headline: Margarine
brands grow popular as consumers ride the health wave, Dec 20, 2012
With lifestyle
diseases on the rise and increasing health consciousness consumers are willing
to replace butter with margarine. Globally, margarine is supposed to be more
popular than butter. It may be just a matter of time before Indian consumers
are willing to bite the ‘health’ bait and shift from butter to margarine. The
margarine segment in India is estimated at Rs 150 crore, while the size of the
butter category is several times bigger at almost Rs 1,200 crore.
Margarine is made out
of vegetable fat and is supposed to be cheaper than butter; however margarine
is sold at a premium as it is positioned as being lighter than butter, low on
calories with no trans-fat and fortified with Vitamin A, D and E.
With a 55 per cent
volume share in the margarine category Zydus (nutralite) is the market leader
followed by Ruchi Soya Industries (Nutrela). Amul and Britannia have also
entered the segment but are yet to garner a significant market share.
Headline: New Year to see 50 new car models, Dec 31, 2012
A conservative estimate puts the number of new
launches and upgrades to over 50 during 2013. These include some cosmetic changes,
upgrades — exterior and engine — and more than a dozen new launches and
possibly segment definers such as Ecosport.
If all the launches happen as planned, we are in
for more than one launch a week during 2013.
Tata Motors is all set to roll out their Safari
Storme, a totally redone sports utility vehicle, pitting it against M&M’s
Scorpio, Bolero, XUV 500 and the game changer, Renault Duster.
While General Motors will set the tempo with the
roll out Sail Sedan and their multi-purpose vehicle Enjoy pitting the latter
against Maruti Suzuki’s runaway hit Ertiga, its American rival will unveil
Ecosport, also seen as a segment breaker.
While GM will launch Enjoy, Ashok Leyland Ltd plans
to roll out MPV Stile, a vehicle built on the lines of Nissan’s SUV Evalia.
Ford is set to roll out Ecosport, Force Motors plans to roll out at least two
vehicles from its stable — Gurkha Trax and Force MPV — the latter in the Toyota
Innova and Tata Aria league.
In the small car segment, Tata Motors plans to
bring out a diesel version of its small car Nano. Maruti is set to upgrade its
A-Star, Fiat is set to bring a new Punto, and Hyundai gearing up to come out
with an all new I-10, which includes a car with a diesel heart. Nissan is also
gearing up for Duster type UV.
In the sedan segment, Mahindra & Mahindra will
come out with the new sub four-meter Verito before March, to take advantage of
the tax structure helping them bring down the cost. Tata Motors is expected to
launch a ‘boot-cut’ version of Tata Manza, seeking to replicate the success it
had with Indigo CS.
Honda will come out with it’s much talked about
Amaze powered by petrol and diesel engines and is also working on bringing out
a diesel-powered upgraded popular City sedan.
Headline: Rural
consumption, new product launches pumped up FMCG sector, Dec 27, 2012
FMCG sector:
·
The FMCG sector
witnessed a growth of 15-20 percent in 2012.
·
ITC, Godrej Consumers
and Hindustan Unilever were the star performers.
·
Many companies either
increased prices by 4-5 per cent or reduced the gram mage of the products to
protect their margins.
PACKAGED FOOD ITEMS:
·
Packaged food that grew
at 15-20 per cent in 2011 came down to 0-2 per cent this year.
·
Many consumers cut down
on packaged food items such as corn flakes, cereals, noodles, soups and
chocolates. They bought cheaper or value-for-money products as slowdown
continued to pinch their pockets.
RURAL CONSUMPTION:
·
Consumption in
the rural economy picked up at a faster pace.
·
Consumers were seen
upgrading themselves to premium categories.
·
Both urban and rural
markets witnessed a number of new brands in the personal care categories.
NEW LAUNCHES:
·
Marico entered the
breakfast category by launching Saffola oats in various flavours and launched
new products in the hair care and skin care segments. The acquisition of
Paras Healthcare helped extend into the male personal care business.
·
Godrej - crème-based
hair colour and extension of Cinthol into categories such as face wash and
moisturisers.
Headline: Bisleri
drops making of ‘Mountain’ water variant, Dec 24, 2012
Packaged water major Bisleri International has
decided to remove ‘Mountain’ water variant from its portfolio. The company’s
roster will now have regular Bisleri and the relatively new natural mineral
water brand of Vedica.
Reasons
for discontinuing Bisleri Mountain water from the portfolio:
·
Confusion in the minds
of the consumers as it looked similar to the original Bisleri.
·
It had limited
volumes and distribution
·
Himalaya is a generic
name and when Bisleri advertised Bisleri Mountain as being ‘sourced from the
Himalayas’, the company got into a legal case with the Himalayan brand from
Tata Global Beverages.
Bisleri Mountain was
created initially for the export market nearly five years ago. It was launched
in India in 2008, and pitted against the Himalayan brand in the natural mineral
water category at a premium. Subsequently, Bisleri Mountain water was priced on
par with the regular Bisleri and was targeted at ‘health conscious’ consumers.
Headline: Emami
Paper puts off mill expansion project in Odisha, Dec 31, 2012
Emami
Paper Mills Ltd has shelved the proposed Rs 1,600-crore paper mill expansion
project at Balasore in Odisha.
The
project could not take off due to failure of the associated social forestry
plantations plan leading to uncertainty on availability of feedstock.
Emami
Paper Mills is an Rs 500-crore outfit of Kolkata-based Emami Group.
The
proposed wood-based pulp and paper mill project, for producing copier paper,
could have scaled up the company’s production capacity to 3 lakh tonnes per
annum from the current 1.5 lakh tonnes per annum.
Land
in Odisha is highly fragmented. So it becomes difficult to achieve the scale of
production required to kick-start the project.
A
dip in demand in the copier paper segment is another reason for the shelving of
the project. There has been a drop in growth rate and demand for copier paper
globally posts the onslaught of laptops etc, so it has become difficult to
market the product.
Headline:
Reliance Digital to increase store count to 500, Jan 1, 2013
·
Reliance
Digital, the electronics chain run by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Group, is on a
massive expansion drive.
·
It
plans to increase store count from the current 101 to 500.
·
The
company is looking to report a revenue of Rs 40,000 crore in the next 3-4
years.
·
Vijay
Nair, Assistant Vice-President of Reliance Retail, noted the company has plans
to increase its store count to 500 by March 2014, with a clear emphasis on Tier
2 and Tier 3 cities.
·
The
company is also looking to have a warehouse in almost every State, from its
current 21 warehouses.
·
The
company will roll out new products like tablets by this month-end to hook
youngsters to the Web.
Headline: Over half the malls in Delhi-NCR vacant, says Assocham, Dec 30, 2012
·
Over
half of the total number of malls in the Delhi-NCR region are vacant due to
reasons like economic slowdown, poor designing and lack of robust revenue
generation model, a survey by Assocham has said.
·
“The
total rate of vacancy in malls in Delhi-NCR is 55 per cent, while in Mumbai it
is 52 per cent followed by Ahmedabad (51 per cent), Chennai (50 per cent),
Hyderabad (48 per cent), Bangalore (45 per cent),” the chamber said.
·
It
said that construction of several malls have significantly been delayed and
withdrawn due to lukewarm response from retailers.
·
“Vacancy
levels are due to poor location, poor design and poor parking facilities while
some are operating at 60 per cent occupancy,” it said.
·
It
said the industry is also facing problems like multiple taxes, lack of clarity
in policies and shortage of experts in areas such as supply chain and store
management.
·
“Biggest
shopping mall can feel like a pretty lonely place, majority of retailers said
that they are holding back on new store openings and focusing on existing
stores,” it added.
·
The
sharpest decline in mall rental values are also recorded high in Delhi-NCR
followed by Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata and Pune,
it said.
·
Most
of the shop owners, who participated in the survey, said that increasing rents
will not work because at the end of the day it has to be affordable for
retailers to do business.
·
There
are about 1,200 shopping malls in India.
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