Amrutanjan to focus on northern, western zones

E-commerce currently contributes 0.5% to total sales.

Amrutanjan Health Care, a major player in the OTC market that is known for its pain-relief balm, is embarking on an expansion of its businesses in the northern and western zones of the country. It is also looking to further strengthen existing markets by introducing new products. The Chennai-based company plans to improve its distribution reach across towns and will scale up new categories launched in the past three to five years. Part of its strategy is to reach 5,000 distributors and sub-distributors; the company is looking to grow the distribution of its products range to regions in the northern and western zones, where business has been relatively weak.

Amrutanjan Health Care chairman & MD S Sambhu Prasad, in a message to shareholders, said the firm is focused on growing its pain balm, health beverage and women’s hygiene portfolio. “This past year we have appointed 974 distributors and sub-distributors. We have improved our direct coverage from 3,953 to 4,510 towns,” he said. Amrutanjan has plans to more than double the share of e-commerce in sales by the end of the current financial year. The company has targeted to achieve close to 1.3% of its national sales from e- commerce in FY21. E-commerce currently contributes 0.5% to total sales. The company’s products are currently available on Amazon, Pharmeasy, Netmeds, Apollo and other consumer sites. It also sells on Amazon’s B2B site and plans are on the anvil to enter Storeking and ShopX, said Prasad. He said the company is working on launching an app around its sanitary napkin brand Comfy, which would help women track their periods, read about menstrual and feminine health, besides ordering the Comfy range of sanitary napkins and related products from home.

“We are also investing in digitisation in a big way by building on the sales force automation project that was rolled out a couple of years ago, by building a data dashboard that seamlessly integrates data flow from various sources,” he said. The Covid pandemic has hit the movement of goods to both distributors, retailers and end consumers. The hit to sales in March was to the tune of Rs 33 crore, he said.

Pointing out that the company could weather the storm as it had built a business on strong fundamentals with real consumer demand, Prasad said the company’s products are not of a discretionary nature but of essential needs — pain ointments, sanitary napkins and rehydration drinks for post-illness recovery.

Amrutanjan is one of India’s leading companies in the OTC market, with 127 years of brand existence with lateral diversification in the areas of beverage and women’s hygiene segments. Its pain balm variants are manufactured in its own units in Chennai and Hyderabad, whereas women’s hygiene products are manufactured in a GMP-certified unit owned by a strategic European partner. Amrutanjan has its beverage-manufacturing facility in the outskirts of Chennai.