ICICI Prudential to hire 10,000 more

Prudential, leading international financial services company, would hire at least 10,000 new staff in India this year for its joint venture insurance operation, ICICI Prudential Life.

Shikha Sharma, chief executive, ICICI Prudential Life said she expected to have a workforce of 27,000 by next March, compared to 16,300 last year and 7,700 two years ago.

ICICI Presidential Life, a joint venture between Prudential and ICICI Bank, was set up six years ago. The former holds a stake of 26% in the joint venture.

Sharma, who has pioneered insurance products for diabetes, argued that India's huge untapped market means that ICICI Prudential Life can maintain a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 100% for the next four to five years.

She said that the company is targeting the growing ranks of affluent people and eyeing the health-care sector in the country.

"We expect well in excess of 100 million households to have disposable income by 2010," Sharma was quoted in The Times, daily today. The existing market is about 30 million.

At present the company has 4.5 million policyholders, whereas the Prudential's customers in UK number about seven million.