India's consumer market represents long-term opportunity: N Chandrasekaran

NEW DELHI: India's consumer market represents a long-term structural opportunity, driven by population, a growing middle class, rapid urbanisation, increasing disposable incomes and raising aspirations, Tata Consumer Products Ltd Chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Thursday.

The Tata group's FMCG arm is well positioned to capitalise on the significant opportunity, he said, while addressing the annual general meeting (AGM) of TCPL.

Chandrasekaran said the India economy has been growing "very strongly" and the current momentum continues to be high.

India is likely to maintain similar growth momentum in the coming years, he said, adding that the global economic landscape has been rather volatile with the geopolitics reshaping supply chains, energy security, and overall resilience.

The baseline forecast for the world economy is to continue to grow over 3 per cent during 2024 and 2025.

However, "India has been growing very strongly with the economic growth rate of 8.2 per cent for the fiscal 2023-2024. Looking at the future, the momentum continues to be high and India should maintain similar growth momentum in the coming years," said Chandrasekaran.

Notably, India's consumer market represents a "long-term structural" opportunity, Chandrasekaran said and noted that this is driven by a young population, a growing middle class, rapid urbanisation, increasing disposable incomes, and raising aspirations.

Chandrasekaran also added that the Indian middle class is growing rapidly, which will create opportunities for the company.

"India's middle class is expected to grow from about 30 per cent of the population to 50 per cent by the end of this decade. That is about an additional 300 million people who will be entering the middle class," he said.

Apart from this, rapid urbanisation, increasing disposable incomes and ever increasing aspirations of consumers, all bode well for Tata Consumer Products Ltd (TCPL), which is well positioned to capitalise on the significant opportunity.

Over the latest acquisition of Capital Foods and Organic India by TCPL, Chandrasekaran said, this is to expand the company's addressable market into high-growth, high-margin segments.

"The company has scaled its distribution to reach 4 million retail outlets in India, which represents a two-fold increase since 2020. The company has also focused on innovation and has replaced a 5x growth in innovation revenue since the fiscal year FY21," he said.

TCPL, new innovations contributes 5 per cent to sales distribution, which is in line with the best metrics in the industry.

"The company's digital transformation agenda has been progressing well," he said.

On Tata Starbucks, its 50:50 JV with Starbuck, he said it has opened 95 new stores in FY24, setting a record for the highest number of stores opened in a single year since inception. "The company's international business has been progressing well," he said.

In FY24, TCPL delivered revenue of Rs 15,206 crores, with a growth of 10 per cent.

TCPL was formed in 2020, after merging the consumer products business of Tata Chemicals with Tata Global Beverages. It owns brands as -- Tata Salt, Tata Tea, Tetley, Eight O'Clock Coffee, Good Earth Tea, and Tata Sampann. It also operates coffee chain Tata Starbucks.