Toothpaste sales see uptick following increase in demand for specific-use flavours | Economic Times

MUMBAI: Specialisation, which has been driving growth for consumer goods, is now showing a marked increase for one of the most mundane products in the market — toothpaste. Need-based offerings are showing a sharp uptick. These include addressing tooth sensitivity, whitening or with herbal and ‘natural’ flavours.As a result, the market is fast moving from generic all-in-one toothpastes to more need-based offerings such as whitening, mint & herbal flavours, and those that address sensitivity. This is in line with global trends where specialty toothpastes are being developed, while some have been repositioned in the beauty/lifestyle category.Toothpaste, with a market size of around Rs 10,000 crore, is one of the most highly penetrated products and is growing at 2-3%. A case in point for specialisation is the sensitivity category, growing five to six times faster than the overall oral health category. 79501786Tapping this potential, GSK Consumer Healthcare is expanding its flagship brand Sensodyne with a specialised oral health care product Polident — a denture care fixative. “Across categories, consumers today are looking for products that cater to their specific needs vs offering all-in-one benefits. The same is true for the oral health category with toothpastes as well. Over time, preference has shifted to toothpastes with a sharply defined benefit proposition — sensitivity relief, freshness and so on. Sensodyne has tapped into this trend to define the sensitivity segment over the last 10 years,” GSK Consumer Healthcare area marketing lead (OH) Anurita Chopra told TOI. Similarly, the ‘natural and ayurvedic’ sub-segment of the toothpaste market is growing at a faster clip. As against this, the overall oral care category grew by around 5% in Q2 of 2020-21. “We are seeing a marked shift in consumer demand for ayurvedic and herbal toothpastes with consumers increasingly seeking natural value-added remedies for their oral hygiene needs. During Q22021, Dabur reported a growth of 24% in our toothpaste business with our flagship brand Dabur Red Paste seeing strong double-digit growth. Our Babool and Meswak brands also reported double-digit growths. We have now expanded our oral care portfolio with the launch of Dabur Dant Rakshak Ayurvedic toothpaste. On a quarterly basis, our volume market share has increased by 90bps (100 basis points = 1 percentage point) in Q2 2020-21 to reach 16.4%, which is our highest ever market share in the toothpaste category,” Dabur India CEO Mohit Malhotra said. The need-based or functional categories in oral care are growth drivers for a while now. “These toothpaste categories — gel-based, ‘natural or herbal’ and those addressing sensitivity — have been outperforming the market, and will corner a larger share over the next few years. The trend started in the late ’80-’90s with consumers taking a fancy to gel-based toothpastes, then herbal or ‘natural’ toothpastes became popular. The growth is attributed to smart advertising and marketing by companies, and the trend of premiumisation being witnessed in oral care, similar to what’s happening in consumer goods in general,” said ICICI Securities research head Manoj Menon.