This is how Wipro is planning to challenge HUL and P&G

Wipro is now looking forward to expand its business from consumer care and lighting business to detergents, energy drinks and fabric conditioners. This will intensify the competition in sectors dominated by global giants Hindustan Unilever and Procter & Gamble.

"The focus will be on cross leveraging of assets. With backend integration, we will enter newer categories under existing brands, with existing formulations, manufacturing and supply," Wipro Consumer chief executive Vine Agrawal told ET.

The Rs 5,900-crore Wipro Consumer Care has done 10 international acquisitions in a decade and will adapt a similar strategy for all globally acquired brands ¬ of tapping new categories under existing brands. The key markets will include China, the Middle East and Malaysia as some of its key strategic markets.

"The focus will be on investing in new, under leveraged categories by leveraging existing ones across countries," he told ET.

However, talking in local context, the maker of Santoor soap and Aramusk male grooming products has not followed the acquisition strategy.

"We are going more global because there's very little happening in India in terms of acquisitions. We can be an enthusiastic buyer but there has to be a willing seller of size and repute, at valuations that are workable," Agrawal told ET.

According to data by researcher Nielsen, Santoor is the No 3 brand within soaps with a 9% share, after HUL's Lifebuoy and Lux, and followed by Dettol from Reckitt Benckiser and Godrej Consumer Products' No 1.

On the consumption outlook, Agrawal said: "We need one more good monsoon and multiple drivers in the economy for consumption revival."