Tamil Nadu consumers root for hair colour shampoo, men surpass women

Chennai: Do men in southern markets buy more hair colour shampoo than women? And are customers in markets like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala the largest consumers of shampoo hair colour in India? FMCG marketers say south Indian states in general and Tamil Nadu in particular form among the biggest chunk of the shampoo hair colour market in India. What’s more, this segment is expected to grow at around 18% clip both nationally and in the southern region, making southern markets a target for new products in this category. And in Tamil Nadu, the larger number of hair colour shampoo buyers are actually men.According to FMCG marketers, south India’s hair colour category is a 1,000 crore market. Out of this, the shampoo hair colour category in the south is around 336 crore. That is 50% of the all-India market of 677 crore and the largest market chunk in the category. What’s more the shampoo hair colour category is also growing fast – industry estimates say this segment has grown 5x times in the south market in the last five years. Of this the Tamil Nadu shampoo hair colour market – at 90 crore – is 26% of the segment market in south India. There is another 100 crore market in the south comprising consumers using formats like hair colour powder and mehendi. K Ramakrishnan, MD - South Asia, Worldpanel Division, Kantar said, “The hair colours category has a penetration of 53% at the national level. Of these households, 15% come from the south of India. This is much like many grooming categories where south lags. However, when it comes to hair colour shampoo, which has a lower 8% penetration in the country, 43% of the buyers come from the south of India. This format is rapidly expanding in the rest of the country too but the growth that the segment has seen over the last few years is exponential.”Not surprisingly, marketers are already tapping this hair grooming niche. Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) for instance has just launched Godrej Selfie exclusively for the southern states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala. This is a 5-minute quick shampoo hair colour brand priced at just 15 and 30 for different pack sizes. Neeraj Senguttuvan, category head – hair care, GCPL said, “Tamil Nadu is now 26% of the shampoo hair colour category in the south witnessing over 47% growth over the last two years. To address this rising demand, GCPL recently launched the Godrej Selfie, which will nudge consumers using other low-cost hair colours like powder and mehndi hair colour to upgrade.” Marketing gurus say as a vanity product, hair colour shampoo is expected to grow both in urban and rural markets. Branding guru Harish Bijoor said, “Hair colour is part of the cosmetic vanity market and shampoo is part of the functional hygiene market. Adoption rates of hair colour in both urban and rural markets rules big .”