Dear Shareholder Family,
I am thrilled to share this report highlighting the progress Colgate-Palmolive (India) Limited has made in FY 2023-24, advancing not only our core growth objectives but also our 2025 Sustainability & Social Impact Strategy.
At our core, is the mission to improve the oral health of everyone in India. This is both our fundamental responsibility and a tremendous privilege. This year, we have made significant strides in this journey, including the launch of our 'Brush at Night' initiative and continued focus on our flagship program, Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures®. Our commitment remains strong to bringing science backed superior products to consumers across our core, premium, and therapeutic portfolios.
While we do this, we also have a responsibility and commitment to building a sustainable world. We remain resolute in our commitment to enrich lives, foster sustainability, and propel positive change.
We have made substantial progress towards our goals on energy & emissions, water neutrality, and zero waste to landfill for our manufacturing operations in India.
Our commitment to fostering a safe, healthy, diverse and inclusive work environment for our people remains steadfast. In line with our commitment to giving back to society, we continue to positively impact lives through our Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures® program, instilling oral care habits amongst children and several other initiatives geared towards championing education, women empowerment, and sustainable water management.
The simple mantra of Grow, Strengthen, Simplify underpinned our actions in FY 2023-24
Grow: This year we delivered a significant step up in our growth trajectory. Our domestic growth of 9.5% and 26.4% PAT and EBITDA margins of 33.7% which are the highest ever. This was driven by unrelenting focus on our 4 strategic pillars of Growing the core while driving category consumption, driving premiumisation in Toothpaste, winning in Toothbrush and devices and finally building the inherent strengths of Palmolive.
Colgate Strong Teeth, Colgate Active Salt and Colgate Total were re-launched with superior, science backed formula. MaxFresh was relaunched with the proprietary UltraFreeze technology, supported by the 'Neend Bhagao, Taazgi Jagao' campaign. We enhanced Colgate Visible White O2 with superior flavour and whitening technology and revitalized the Zig Zag toothbrush range, making it our fastest-growing core brand. Elevating oral beauty regimen, we launched the Visible White Teeth Whitening Pen, an efficacious at-home solution that brightens your smile while you sleep.
Additionally, we introduced new, exotic variants in the Palmolive body wash portfolio with unique fragrances. A really high decibel year from an innovation perspective.
Recognizing a pivotal consumer insight* that people indulge in sweets after dinner but forget to brush before bedtime, we launched 'The Sweet Truth' campaign. This successful campaign, timed with the festive season, raised awareness about the importance of night-time brushing and won several prestigious awards.
Strengthen: Through the year we strengthened the already exceptionally strong Colgate brand with awareness and consideration reaching 67% (+600 bps) and 68% (+500 bps) both by far the highest in the category. Oral Care Expert also increased by 500 bps to 78% again the highest in the category, and Colgate continues to be the single most penetrated FMCG brand in the country**.
Through the year we have also doubled down on our sustainability commitment.
We have made significant strides in environmental sustainability. Three of our plants have attained net water positivity, and renewable energy accounts for 18% of our energy mix. 50% of our Toothpaste tubes are in recyclable packaging using the technology developed by Colgate and we are on track to exit FY 2024-25 with 100% recyclability.
And in line with our mission, the Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures® (BSBF) program went from strength to strength, reaching over 5.2 million children across 10,000+ schools in over 150 cities and towns inculcating oral care habits and awareness about tobacco prevention and good nutrition.
Simplify: Through the year a slew of measures have been taken to reduce complexity, notable among these are using Machine Learning (ML) for demand forecasting, increasing robotization in plants, AI led planogramming in self service stores and maximizing Advertising ROI through a robust Market Mix modeling.
As we look back at the year, we feel a sense of pride in the progress we have made coupled with a sense of optimism of what is yet to come. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my fellow employees at Colgate India, the board of Colgate India, the global Colgate team that supports us every day, our shareholders and most importantly the consumers in India for putting their trust in us everyday. We step into FY 2024-25 with significant resolve and a smile on our faces.
Best Wishes,
Prabha Narasimhan
Managing Director and
Chief Executive Officer
DIN: 08822860
*This is basis our internal consumer and insighting work undertaken by CPIL
** Data as per Kantar Brand Health Tracking 2023 - 24