Kimberly-Clark to focus on its broad-based market in India

Story by Gurdip Singh and originally published on PTI and The Economic Times.

Singapore, Dec 15 (PTI) Describing Asia as the most promising growth market for the multinational, a US-based company for health & hygiene products has said it is focussing on providing superior quality products for babies, women in its broad-based market in India.

Kimberly-Clark is focussing on new demands for consumers in its broad-based market development plan for India.

"Our focus is on providing superior quality diapers for babies, sanitary pads for women and repairing toilets in Government schools in India as part of our global sanitation campaign called 'Toilets Change Lives'," Achal Agarwal, President for Asia Pacific at Kimberly-Clark, told PTI.

"Babies, youth and women; we see them as India's future," said the consumer market veteran who was honoured with the CNBC Asia Business Leader of the Year, an award that honours the best leaders in the industry across Asia.

"I am deeply honoured and humbled to be awarded the CNBC Asia Business Leader of the Year 2016 which I dedicate to my team and is also testimony to Kimberly-Clark's vision to improving the everyday lives of our consumers and contributing positively to the society and environment," he said.

Describing Asia as the most promising growth market for the multinational, Agarwal highlighted Kimberly-Clark's corporate social responsibility commitment in India, which includes restoring school toilets and driving behaviour change among students towards open defecation.

Kimberly-Clark, he assured, is sensitive to the daily needs of Asians and takes into consideration cultural and habitual norms of every customer when designing its products.

"We want to be a part of the Swachh Bharat initiative and help meet the need of school toilets for students, especially girls as we see children as agents of behaviour change," he said.

"Asia is Kimberly-Clark's fastest growing and largest international business and we see future growth coming from Asia's mix of developed and emerging markets," underlined Agarwal, the first non-resident Indian business executive in the last decade to win the CNBC award.

India, with 25 million babies a year, accounts for USD 350 million of the diaper category. Comparatively, China, with 19 million babies, accounts for USD 3 billion of the category.

"But among these growing markets, we expect faster expansion of our customer base in India," added Agarwal, who is renowned for keeping "things simple and focus on agility" for a quick change to keep up with changing trends in the ever growing internet savvy-region.

Kimberly-Clark serves the Indian market from its Mumbai headquarters and a Pune-based manufacturing facility, a producer of diapers for babies.