FMCG industry should grow in high single digit in this & next quarter: Godrej Consumer

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Vivek Gambhir, Managing Director & CEO, Godrej Consumer Products spoke about what are the demand trends looking like and how are fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies gearing up as the festive season gets set to kick off.

FMCG sector is seeing good resilience, a good bounce back and if this continues it augurs well in terms of overall recovery for FMCG sector. The consumer sentiment is improving, channel partners are largely back in business, goods and services tax (GST) rates have come down, most of the players have passed on the benefits to the consumers, cash is back into the economy post demonetisation, monsoon has been reasonably good. So all in all, the recovery is underway and if this continues, we should be back to normal situation in a few months, he said.

We are operating in a soft macro-economic environment, so for the last four-five quarters, gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been soft, he added.

FMCG industry grew at about 4-5 percent in FY17. We should be able to see high single digit growth this quarter, if not this quarter then the quarter ahead, said Gambhir.

We are hoping that the industry can return to high single digit volume growth ideally this quarter, if not this quarter then next quarter, he further mentioned.

Our intent would be to outperform the industry, so I am hoping that we can do better than the average industry trends, he said.

Speaking about Indonesian business, he said that Indonesia macro-economically is still going through significant challenges, consumer demand looks weak. Business is improving incrementally, so this quarter should be better than the previous quarter. Generally things are looking up in Indonesia, added Gambhir.

For full interview, watch accompanying video...