Nestle to launch premium chocolates, heating up the competition in India

India: Nestle is planning to launch pricier variants and brands from its global portfolio and challenging top players in the market like Mondelez and Ferrero. The Swiss company has planned to relaunch its Alpino range next month along with a premium range of its European chocolates under the brand.

Mondelez controls almost two-thirds of the market, with wafer coated and white chocolate industry dominating the market. Keeping it as a core focus point, Nestle has decided to launch premium European range chocolate bars along with traditional bon-bons of the Alpino category. The novel products are their way to present and enter different technologies with a particular brand.  Nestle has launched around two dozen products in last six months. The company launched new variants of Munch and KitKat during the start of the year. The company has more products lined up in its economic range by reintroducing old products and bringing down the prices of existing products to increase its share. Nestle has also put in heavy investment in their production power to meet the increasing demands, observing its competitors like Mondelez, which has invested USD190 Million in its production facility in Andhra Pradesh, the largest in Asia-Pacific.

TechSci Research depicts that the company is expanding its product portfolio to reduce its dependence on other products like Maggi, following the controversy of last year. As a result of that controversy, stock worth almost USD33 Million was withdrawn from the stock market and Maggi was banned for five months. So, with the chocolate industry booming in the country, the company have decided to reduce their dependency on their most selling product by diversifying their product portfolio.

According to a report published by TechSci Research, “India Chocolate Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020”, chocolate market in India is projected to surpass USD17 billion by 2020. In 2014, Consumer chocolates segment dominated the Indian chocolate market, and this trend is expected to continue over the course of next five years. Product innovations, strong marketing strategies and increase in variety of products are driving consumer chocolate sales in India. Over the last few, apart from children, adult population has emerged as the key consumer segment for chocolate companies in the country. Consequently, manufacturers have been launching new and innovative chocolate products such as sugar-free and organic chocolates to lure adult consumers.