Godrej Consumer starts price war in liquid detergents

Godrej Consumer Products has launched a new brand of liquid detergent Godrej fab in South India, four decades after introducing Godrej Ezee, the country's first specialised liquid detergent tailored for winter wear and woollens, in 1983.

The Mumbai-based company decided to launch another brand of liquid detergent despite having Godrej Genteel liquid detergent.

The consumer major has witnessed an explosion in the Rs 2,000 crore liquid detergent market in the last two years.

The new product has also been priced at Rs 99 per litre.

“We realise that we have this muscle of taking a category which is seen as aspirational, which is seen as more beneficial than what consumers are currently using, but we are using innovation and formulation to bring the price down,” Ashwin Moorthy, chief marketing officer at Godrej Consumer Products told Business Standard.

He added that whenever access is provided to the consumer, the company sees a sharp increase in penetration levels and consumer adoption of the category.

The company has so far launched the liquid detergent mainly in South India as the washing machine penetration is higher there as compared with the rest of India.

In South India, the washing machine penetration stands at 40 per cent compared to upwards of 30 per cent in the urban areas.

The use of liquid detergents in the South is higher than the rest of the country and the category size of liquid detergents in Southern states stands at approximately Rs 700 crore.