Dabur to focus on high-margin products

Dabur India plans to shift focus from low-margin products such as Odopic utensil cleaner to high-margin products. It also plans to enter newer categories such as milk beverages, floor cleaners and enter lucrative FMCG segments such as skincare.

"We want to shift focus from low-margin businesses, especially in the homecare segment, to high-margin ones. As an example, we would like to exit the oil cleaner segment and enter the business of hard surface cleaners such as floor cleaners. We already have three variants lined up in the category for launch next month," Sunil Duggal, chief executive, Dabur India, told analysts.

The company expects new launches to increase contribution to revenue from 7 per cent at present to 10 per cent in a year, with the introduction of new product lines, variants and renovating formulation and packaging of existing products.

Dabur plans to exit the business of mosquito coils, where it is present through the Odomos brand, the brand Dabur acquired from Balsara. However, it will continue to focus on brands such as Odomos skin lotion.

Another brand from the erstwhile Balsara stable, toilet cleaner Sanifresh, would also be launched in three new variants within the next quarter itself, Duggal said. Dabur's homecare segment grew 21 per cent in the quarter ended June 30.

The other focus areas for Dabur in the coming months would be health foods. The company now has plans of introducing chyawanprash in the form of milk additive, the formulation for which has been perfected over the last one year.

This product would be in line with brown-health beverages such as Horlicks and would be test-launched in certain markets within the next two months. Dabur will launch a white variant later.

The chyawanprash business grew 16 per cent in the last quarter backed by the company's launch of a sugar-free variant named Chyawanprakash.

We would focus on developing new product lines in the health beverage segment, said Duggal and added that the company would begin exploring additions to its culinary and value-added products, which would be among the main areas of focus this year.

The company also wants to expand its Gulabari brand to include other skincare products such as moisturisers and talcum powder. Dabur's skincare segment saw healthy 26 per cent growth during the April-June quarter. The growth was mostly aided by the sales of Gulabari rosewater, which saw growth of 23 per cent.