With its cigarette business coming under increased regulations, ITC is seeking to grow its new FMCG businesses and is aiming to achieve Rs.1 lakh crore revenues by 2030, Chairman Y. C. Deveshwar, said.
This segment, which ITC diversified into in 1996, has seen spends surpassing the Rs.10,000-crore mark and new categories such as dairy, tea and coffee were being eyed. “We have already launched fruit-based juices and the Munger unit in Bihar, was ready to launch its dairy products any time now” he said declining to give further details.
Earlier at the company’s 104 annual geneal meeting , he said Aashirvad and Sunfeast had already garnered consumer spend of over Rs.2,000 crores each while Classmate and Bingo have crossed the Rs.1,000-crore mark. “It is your company’s aspiration to achieve at the very least, a revenue of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from new-FMCG businesses by 2030, reinforcing our resolve to be the No. 1 FMCG player in India,” he added..
He said ITC was focussing on R&D and had hired talent aggressively, while also expanding its R&D facility in Bengaluru. It has filed 351 patent applications in the area of agri-business, forestry, foods and consumables, he said.
He said that 20 projects for building physical assets were under active implementation of the 65 projects planned by ITC.
“Consumption demand is tepid but we are adding 7,000 rooms to our existing 9,500 keys in our hotel business and also proposing Rs.8,000 crore investment in Telangana,” he said.
He said that Rs.3,500 crore worth of investments were under implementation in West Bengal, which included two food parks and a 500-room expansion of the ITC Sonar hotel. Construction will soon start on the new ITC centre at Rajarhat, he said, adding that many of these projects were pending since 2003.
He said in tandem with ITC’s consumer goods business, distribution and logistics infrastructure was being augmented to streamline processes.
The ITC Chairman, however, vented his angst over the statutory warning and the increased imposts on cigarettes implying that certain “so-called NGOs were behind the same.. “this is the best way to kill a brand”. Cheaper smuggled cigarettes, without the pictorial warnings now have a 20 per cent market share, he said.
