Godrej to acquire personal care companies with a budget of INR 3,000 crore

India: The managing director of GCPL had said that in the coming year the company is will start to acquire more firms across Africa, Indonesia and India. While Godrej has many brands operating in the consumer goods segment the company has laid the strategy of acquiring new companies to enter the newer market segments. This strategy is said to reduces the cost to build a brand from scratch and has the advantage of less media advertising costs and a well-established distribution channel.

As a part of the expansion strategy the company’s premium retail chain Nature’s Basket is said to start selling ready to eat meals. The company’s online grocery store which was started in 2005 as a single fresh food store has now expanded to 36-store chain of premium gourmet stores and the e-commerce site is said to expand to 200 cities by the end of fiscal 2016. According to a recently published report by TechSci Research “India Online Grocery Market By Product Type (Food Grains; Bread, Bakery & Dairy Products; Fruits & Vegetables; Personal Care; Dry & Baking Products; Products; Beverages; etc.), Consumer Behaviour, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 – 2021”, the online grocery market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of 55% during 2016 – 2021. Region-wise, the southern region dominated the country’s online grocery market in 2015 on account of increasing number of hi-tech cities in the region coupled with higher awareness among consumers.

The company choose Africa and Indonesia as the markets there are developing at a high pace and have similar retail profile. According to TechSci Research, this is said to be a perfect strategy as with the given similar retail profiles it becomes easy for the company to gain a strong hold of the market in all the three countries without having to start building products from scratch.