Unilever, L’Oreal ride the quick commerce wave in India

Multinational consumer goods companies Unilever and L'Oréal are witnessing strong growth on ecommerce platforms in many markets, with India emerging as a standout performer.

Unilever and L'Oréal, in their earnings calls for the September quarter, reported a doubling of their sales, helped by hyper-local delivery platforms that are growing rapidly in the country.

French beauty major L’Oréal’s CEO Nicolas Hieronimus, who was in India earlier this month, said quick-commerce or traditional e-commerce platforms in the country are a game changer, helping to penetrate much faster with new products or continuing to animate existing brand."

“We were talking about the US, but 10 days ago, I was in India, where it’s clearly a game changer for us because whether it’s quick commerce or the traditional platform allows us to reach consumers all over the country, which we could not do before,” said Hieronimus while replying to a query.

Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez said digital commerce accounts for 17% of the British consumer goods company’s revenue.

"We are growing Amazon at 15%. We are growing Walmart.com at 25%. We are growing Flipkart in India at 30%, growing TikTok globally at 70%," he said while responding to a query.

Unilever, which operates in India through its subsidiary HUL, said its portfolio is much better suited now, following the research it has done through disposals of value brands and significant acquisitions in the premium segments.

Now, 'digitally native brands' are operating with a lot of success, said Fernando.

In markets such as the US, this portfolio has the highest e-commerce exposure that Unilever has globally, he said.

“But we see similar trends in other markets, China, India. Our quick commerce business in India is more than doubling this year. We believe our portfolios are well-suited, our capabilities are significant in that space," said Fernando.

French beauty major L’Oréal’s CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said digital and e-commerce can overperform the market.

"When we say the market is growing a bit above plus 3%, probably the growth rate of e-commerce is more than twice that. We have grown our e-commerce growth by 12% right now,” he said.