Lever to chill out with more Kwality Walls outlets

In continuation of its urban focus strategy, Kwality Walls "" one of the power brands of FMCG giant Hindustan Lever (HLL) "" will be setting up 15 more Kwality Swirls outlets at select malls across the country.

This move is part of its strategy of focussing on the ice cream business in the urban markets after bringing all the existing brands under the Kwality Walls portfolio.

In 2004, Hindustan Lever had announced that it would be setting up Swirls outlets at malls as well as 200 scooping stations by the end of 2005 to cater to the impulse buy segment of consumers.

A company spokesperson said, having met those targets, the company would continue with aggressive expansion plans to step up its presence. It would set up more parlours and scooping stations depending upon the availability of suitable malls with sufficient throughputs.

These outlets would continue to be centred on the metros and the mini-metros

According to the IRS 2005 figures, Kwality Walls is among the more popular brands with the sec A1, A2 and B1 categories, second only to Mother Dairy "" which is predominant in the north "" and substantially ahead of Amul.

The company, through advertising (the pleasure-up campaign), has tried to position itself as a youth brand, and, according to the IRS 2005 data, Amul is only marginally more popular than Kwality in the 15-30 age group.

Ironically, Kwality overtakes Amul in the 30-50 age bracket, although Mother Dairy is still more popular by far.

The July-September quarter has been significant for HLL as its ice-cream business posted 11 per cent gain "" impressive as it was a non-seasonal quarter. The revenue for the given quarter was Rs 80.98 crore, up from Rs 75.88 crore for the corresponding quarter last year.

The company said it would continue to test new models as well as product mixes to cater to the consumer needs. "The new models have been responsible for about 11 per cent of our incremental growth," said the spokesperson, though he did not divulge details.

This, along with an improved performance in the previous quarter, can be considered an indication of at least one part of the foods business (besides beverages) starting to show some improvement.