Indiantelevision.com Team

(19 January 2007 12:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Amway India, the direct selling FMCG company, has announced that it closed the year January - December 2006, at Rs 7.38 billion, up from Rs 6.33 billion in the previous reported 12 month period. This represents a growth of almost 17 per cent.

Amway MD and CEO Bill Pinckney attributes this growth to the top-class quality of Amway products as well as the consumers confidence in brand Amway. "We have had an over seven-fold increase in the eight years we have been in the Indian market. Amway clocked its first year in 1998 with a turnover of Rs 98 crores. With close to 80 products being sold across the country by Amway distributors, it is only a question of time before we breach the magical figure of Rs 1000 crores."

According to Pinckney, the trend in the Indian market mirrors that of the Amway experience, overseas. "Amway is known as a health and beauty company worldwide. It does not surprise us that the 30 cosmetic and 16 health-care products in the Indian market, account for over 60 per cent of our turnover."

Amway has presence in four product categories - (i) Nutrition and Wellness (ii) Cosmetics (iii) Home care and (iv) Personal care products. Amway's greatest achievement has been in helping establish the direct selling (DS) industry in India, informs an official release.

"The Direct Selling industry was in a nascent stage when we entered the market. Today, this industry is a thriving Rs 3000 crore industry." However, Pinckney added that the DS industry still had some distance to cover, essentially as industry was still not very well understood.

Director - marketing and distributor relations Stephen Beddoe said, "Amway had started business with six products and from five offices: today we have around 80 products and 74 offices across the length and breadth of the country, with home deliveries to over 2500 towns and cities." According to Beddoe, the Amway business was driven by the 450,000 active distributors providing them an income earning opportunity. Amway contributed more than Rs 175 crores to the Government exchequer in 2006 by way of direct and indirect taxes and duties.

"85 per cent of all Amway products sold in the country, are manufactured at the facilities of our five contract manufacturers to whom state of the art technology has been transferred free of cost with the plant at Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) having the capacity to produce bulk of the Amway products," adds Amway director - operations and supply chain Jerome Varman. "Amway contributes close to 2500 jobs directly and indirectly at its own offices, at the vendor facilities as well as at that of our service partners and C&F agents."