Focus: Durex makes India condom push for women, rural consumers

TTK Healthcare

12/09/2024 06:30

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      India's condom market growing but faces many challenges
    

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      Durex targeting women consumers in India with new lubes,
ads
    

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      Company says smaller condom packs could do better in rural
areas
    

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      Condom use rising in largely conservative India
    

  
    By Richa Naidu and Dhwani Pandya
       LONDON/MUMBAI, Sept 12 (Reuters) - For years, the
world's biggest condom maker Reckitt Benckiser  RKT.L  designed
products and marketing to lure Indian men to its Durex brand.
Now, it is pushing a growth strategy by betting on women and
rural consumers.
    India last year surpassed China to become the world's most
populous nation, but still fares poorly on the use of
contraceptives. India's government estimates only around 10% of
men use condoms and for women, sterilization remains the popular
form of contraception.
    Social stigma surrounding sex - which some say stems from
Victorian social norms established during British colonization -
has for decades marginalized female pleasure in the Indian
society. 
    But attitudes are changing and Reckitt is shifting marketing
gears to take advantage of an upswing in condom use among Indian
women - now a key target audience for Durex.
    Around 9.5% of married Indian women cited using condoms
during sex by 2021, almost double the use five years earlier,
according to latest available government statistics. Among
unmarried women, such use more than doubled to 27%.  
    Reckitt is reformulating products such as lubricants aimed
at attracting women consumers, and has new marketing campaigns,
Pankaj Duhan, Reckitt's senior vice president of intimate
wellness, told Reuters in an interview.
    The Durex lubricants in India will use improved formulations
to appeal to women and have been created after performing
clinical studies to address concerns females face -- 30% of
Indian women experience some discomfort when having sex with
their partner.
    "We want to change this ... That is why we are relaunching
our lubes portfolio," said Duhan. "The women tend to become a
little bit more underserved consumer groups."
    The India condoms market is currently dominated by Mankind
Pharma  MNKI.NS , which makes Manforce, followed by Reckitt and
TTK Healthcare  TTKH.NS .
    
    CHALLENGES
    The British consumer goods firm faces some stiff challenges
in its quest to carve out a lucrative slice of the female condom
market and rural consumers, primarily with distribution and
pricing - two areas industry watchers believe are key to success
- but also in coaxing a still-largely conservative rural
population to buy its products.
    Moreover, competitors are making a pitch to women too, with
Durex's main rival and market leader Manforce tweaking its
marketing -- a recent ad stars a Bollywood actress talking about
benefits of condoms and asking women to "go buy your own."
    "One challenge Reckitt may face is consistency of
messaging," said Devangshu Dutta, head of retail consultancy
Third Eyesight, adding the company needs to figure out if it is
targeting condoms for health, family planning, or pleasure as
there could be different messaging for each type of shopper.
    The growth opportunity is compelling - India's condom market
size is merely worth $210 million, compared to China's $4.1
billion, but is forecast to grow at 7.4% compound annual rate
between 2024 and 2030, according to Indian consulting firm
6Wresearch. The global market is worth $11.3 billion.
    Growing the market will take some doing though, not least
because of India's vast size and millions of mom-and-pop stores
require a widespread distributor network. 
    Currently, only about 10-15% of Durex's sales in India come
from rural areas, which is far more price sensitive than urban
cities. 
    "Distribution is the big challenge simply because even
though most consumer goods companies have made their way to all
pincodes in the country, the question is maintaining
availability at retail points," said Dutta of Third Eyesight.
    
    CHIPPING AWAY AT TABOOS    
    Sex education in the conservative country is also lagging,
and there is a vast gulf between awareness and actual use of
contraceptives. 
    Matt Godfrey, executive vice president for Asia Pacific at
Monks ad agency, part of S4Capital  SFOR.L , said marketing
tweaks by the likes of Durex are a welcome change but condom use
and sex education need to improve in India.
    "There are significant societal and cultural aspects that
need to be rapidly shifted to reverse the status quo," he said.
    In the eastern state of Odisha, for example, a small medical
store of Sudam Padhan does not prominently display condoms as
"people frown upon them."
    In India, it's men who mostly buy condoms, but some like
Pooja, a marketer in Mumbai, are trying to drive change. She
made an "awkward" decision to buy condoms herself for the first
time this year, saying "when I'm asking for a condom over the
counter I am basically putting my health first."
    Still, in a telling sign of the somewhat taboo nature of the
topic, the 31-year-old declined to share her last name as she is
unmarried and feared societal admonition.
    “An open conversation encouraging safe and responsible sex
in India has been steadily progressing but needs to be
continually supported" by brands including Durex, S4Capital's
Godfrey said.
    Like many of its rivals, Reckitt has over the years largely
focussed on Indian men, with many ads featuring women wearing
skimpy clothes. 
    Rival Manforce Condoms features former pornstar Sunny Leone
in videos, some labelled "EXCLUSIVE UNCENSORED". Duhan said many
of the condom ads "objectified women."
    But that's changing. Durex earlier this year launched a
risqué "Explorers Wanted" lubricants campaign in India which
featured sensual shots of nude male body parts.
            
    PRICING PAINS
    Pricing is another big challenge, especially in stores in
smaller towns and villages which are reluctant to stock condoms
and lubes. Duhan said products have to be "extremely cheap" to
sell in some rural areas, where many use free
government-provided condoms.    
    Padhan, from the medical store in Odisha, doesn't stock
Durex "because they are costly and there's no demand for them in
rural areas," and says most sales are of Ustad "Deluxe Condoms"
made by a state-run firm. 
    Ustaad costs just 10 rupees (11 U.S. cents) for a pack of
six. A pack of 10 Durex condoms starts retailing at around 250
rupees, with some priced above $6, and a similar pack of
Manforce starts at $1.
    But the smaller three-condom Durex pack starts retailing
around 99 rupees, and Reckitt believes they will sell better in
rural India. 
    "We are starting at the top (and) planning to get down to
the rural areas," Duhan said. "It's a massive undertaking". 

 (Reporting by Richa Naidu in London and Dhwani Pandya in
Mumbai; Additional reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow and
Jatindra Das in Bhubaneswar; Editing by Aditya Kalra & Shri
Navaratnam)
 ((aditya.kalra@thomsonreuters.com; @adityakalra;))