With summer almost here, Hindustan Lever on Tuesday claimed that it was ahead of Amul in the ice-cream market and said it will further consolidate its position with the launch of five new flavours.
"There is no third-party independent audit available now for market shares as AC Nielsen-ORG has stopped measuring market share for ice-creams," J H Mehta, executive director (ice cream), HLL, told PTI.
"However, an excellent surrogate measure is the excise duty paid. During 2003, HLL paid excise duty of Rs.15.7 crore (Rs 157 million) on ice-cream. In a comparable period (April 03- March 04), Amul paid total excise duty of Rs 8.59 crore (Rs 85.9 million) on the entire milk and milk products portfolio as per their published accounts.
"Assuming that this entire duty paid by Amul related to ice-cream only, their market share is clearly significantly below Kwality Walls," Mehta said.
The company will be launching five new ice-creams this summer to further increase its market share, Mehta said.
The new products are Kwality Wall's Cornetto-Chocoblock (with cake), Kwality Wall's Feast-Rum Kick, Kwality Wall's Lite (with 50% less fat), Kwality Wall's Jiggly Bigly (with jelly) for children, and Kwality Wall's Biki Max (vanilla ice cream sandwiched in biscuits).
Industry estimates peg the organised ice-cream market to the tune of Rs 600 crore (RS 6 billion).
Kwality Wall's made a major strategic shift in 2002 by focussing on one power brand (Kwality Wall's) in six metros of the country while cutting out unprofitable geographies/factories/packs.
