ITC forays into personal care with high-end shampoo

Cigarette and FMCG major, ITC has launched its first mass personal care offering, a high-end shampoo .

After a year of speculation, ITC has launched its first mass market personal care product. ITC 's shampoo brand, Fiama di Wills is in the premium segment, that’s growing faster at 44%, compared to 21% for the overall market.

Interestingly, ITC didn’t introduce a new brand name for its shampoo. Instead it has opted for a brand extension of its two year old, super premium range of personal care products, Essenza di Wills . But unlike Essenza that was available at ITC hotels and Wills Lifestyle stores, Fiama di Wills shampoos will be stocked at retail stores across India. The product will be available at Rs 99 for a 200 ml bottle.

ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar had gone on record on CNBC-TV18 and said that ITC wanted to position itself as India’s number one FMCG company.

On the pricing front, ITC is taking established players like HUL and P&G head on.

And like in its foods business, where it started with Kitchens of India and then moved to Sunfeast, experts say ITC might launch a mass market shampoo in due course.

But that’s where the similarity ends. Unlike the biscuit and snack categories, where ITC had one or two big players to contend with, the shampoo market is crowded with multiple players and variants. The competition is cut-throat.

ITC also has its work out its distribution. The famous pan-beedi network of ITC will not come in handy for Fiama di Wills. Also, expect heavy-decibel shampoo promotion to start soon. And after Fiama di Wills, the launch of mass-market soaps may just seem round the corner.