Unilever invests and wants to be the liquid soap leader
Gazeta Mercantil - 07/24/2008
Among the many strategies Unilever has for Brazil this year one of the main ones is to develop and expand the liquid soap sector. "This is a still little developed market in Brazil, with very little coverage", declares Unilever's marketing vice-president for personal products Andrea Rolim. According to the executive, the liquid soap coverage in the Brazilian market is 12.5%. The data is from the AC Nielsen Institute. "The goal of the company is to increase this coverage by 50%, at least, so it may then define the market share objectives", declares Andrea. With an eye on all this growth potential, the company took, in the last weeks, a decisive step in the segment and launched new lines of products with two important brands of this market: Lux and Dove. The executive said that according to a research made by the company, most of the people who tries liquid soap does not go back to soap in bar. Unilever's investments in the sector exceed R$ 50 million (US$ 31.3 million). The British-Dutch company aims at reaching the leadership in this segment, which today represents nearly 11% of the total soap market, including soap in bars. The total soap market sold R$ 1.9 billion (US$ 984.5 million) in 2007, according to data from the AC Nielsen Institute and it grows at rate of 17% a year. From the total market, Unilever is the leader with a market share of 30.5% whereas Palmolive has 11.2%, according to data from the AC Nielsen Institute from May this year.