What diaper brands Babyhug, Little’s, and Himalaya have in common

There is no dearth of options in the market for new parents looking to buy diapers for their babies. While some prioritise comfort, others may look for ease of wearing and wetness absorption. Some others may choose based on the price point. 

While they browse through various diaper brands, many of them may not know that some of the competing brands are actually produced by the same contract manufacturer—Swara Baby Products. What’s more, these brands are indirectly linked to the retail company FirstCry. 

This is what the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) of Swara Baby Products—filed earlier this month to raise Rs 1000 crore through an IPO—reveals.

Swara Baby Products may be a lesser-known company, but it is promoted by Brainbees Solution Ltd, the parent company of FirstCry, a popular online store for baby, kids, and maternity products.  

Brainbees made its first investment in Madhya Pradesh-based Swara in 2020 to obtain a majority stake (53.45%). It subsequently increased its stake to 76.59%. 

The DRHP says Swara is the largest contract manufacturer of baby diapers in India. While it sells diapers via its own brand Cuddles, it also manufactures diapers for FirstCry (for the label Babyhug), Piramal Pharmaceuticals (Little’s), and Himalaya. The document also shows that Swara supplies to more than 20 customers across categories such as baby diapers, adult incontinence. and feminine hygiene. However, it hasn’t named most of its customers in the DRHP.

According to the DRHP, Swara manufactures products at Pithampur, Madhya Pradesh, and plans to expand at the same location.

While popular brands like Pampers, Mamy Poko, and Huggies engage in in-house manufacturing, baby diaper brands such as Mee Mee, Apollo Pharmacy, Supples, Mothercare and Solimo rely on contract manufacturing.  

Currently, brands that manufacture in-house dominate India's baby diaper market.

“The top of the market is dominated by global leaders like Pampers (P&G), MamyPoko (Unicharm), and Huggies (Kimberly-Clark), which benefit from long-standing consumer trust and extensive retail distribution. These brands compete largely on performance, skin safety, and emotional positioning, and have built wide salience across urban and semi-urban markets,” the DRHP report notes.

Just under 18% of the total diapers in India are made by contract manufacturers. However, the DRHP says, the share of third-party manufacturing in the country  has increased steadily over the past few years. 

“[This is] driven by the rapid scale-up of private label and D2C brands and growing demand for flexible, capital-efficient production models,” says the report, adding, “Marketplace retailers such as Amazon, Flipkart, and FirstCry have increasingly expanded their private label presence in baby diapers, relying on contract manufacturers for supply and leveraging their control over distribution, customer data, and platform visibility to capture better margins without investing in asset-heavy infrastructure.”

Feature image by Nihar Apte