FROZEN TIES

New Delhi, May 2: With the mercury soaring, the Rs 500-crore branded ice cream market in India is set to witness afresh a battle of the two titans — Amul and Hindustan Lever’s (HLL) Kwality Wall’s.

With increasing competition from Amul and a dwindling market share over the years, HLL says it is focusing on the metro markets as that account for two-thirds of the ice cream market.

“AC Nielsen-ORG audits ice cream sales in Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Bangalore, which account for about two-thirds of the country’s ice cream consumption. HLL is the market leader in these cities with a 31.7 per cent share by value,” said an official spokesperson for HLL.

Amul maintains that it has a 27 per cent national market share according to last year’s sales, whereas Kwality Wall’s has about 8 per cent and Mother Dairy and Vadilal have about 7 per cent each. Local branded ice cream accounts for about 40 per cent of the market share. Arun in the South and Dinshaw in the West account for about 4 per cent each. If one includes the unorganised sector, the ice cream market is about Rs 2,000 crore.

“We have not carried out any market share survey based on the six metros as we are focusing on national growth. In fact, we are taking some of our ice creams overseas as well,” Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) spokesperson R. S. Khanna said. Amul is the flagship brand of GCMMF.

While Kwality Wall’s is keen to expand its energies in the six metro markets alone, its attempt to focus on value-added premium projects has been picked up by arch rival Amul, which is now focusing beyond the ‘value for money’ plank, which once helped it to surge ahead of HLL.

To beat Kwality Wall’s on its own turf of an upmarket image it is trying to carve out, Amul is getting into the premium segment of the ice cream market as well. Some time back it had launched ‘utterly delicious’ premium range of ice creams in party packs of 1 kg and 750 ml.

“So far, most of our ice creams were below Rs 10. Now we are getting into the premium segment,” said Khanna. The brand has recently rolled out 100 ml cup sizes in the premium segment at a price point of Rs 15. The flavours that are available in the premium segment from Amul includes litchi, strawberry, alphonso mango, cheese with almond and date with honey.

To gear up for the summer act, Kwality Wall’s has launched several new ice creams variants in 2004, including Cornetto Choco fudge priced at Rs 15 and Feast Crunchy Chocobar priced at Rs 12. Cornetto and Feast are existing Kwality Wall's brands.

Kwality Wall's premium Viennetta range has been relaunched in vanilla and chocolate flavours and as Viennetta Cappuccino Nut. Viennetta Vanilla has now been priced at Rs 99. In its Max range for children, it has come up with Sunshine Zing, the first cone in that segment priced at Rs 10, Sparkle Zap (Rs 10) and Twister Zoom (Rs 15).