Consumers may be cautiously buying a Rs 5 biscuit pack, but when it comes to premium biscuit variants, they aren't thinking twice, an analysis of data from Kantar Worldpanel showed.

Data from Kantar Worldpanel, the global consumer research firm owned by communications and advertising giant WPP, revealed that premium brands saw double-digit volume growth in the first half of 2019 versus the same period last year.

The trend seems to be playing out across most large FMCG categories, the research showed, with soaps, shampoos, biscuits, noodles and chocolates outpacing the overall category consumption and volume growth.

Volume growth is the number of product stock keeping units sold by the companies while consumption growth is the number of purchases the households actually make.

For instance, premium bar soaps saw volume growth of 13.5 percent vs 2.2 percent category volume growth. The consumption growth for premium bar soaps stood at 10.7 percent against the category consumption de-growth of 0.9 percent. Premium shampoos, on the other hand, saw volume growth of 11.9 percent vs 9.9 percent category volume growth. Similarly, premium biscuits, chocolates and noodles also saw a double-digit volume growth against a single-digit category growth.

Analysts say that this kind of growth is reflective of consumer aspirations despite a slowdown playing out in the market. FMCG companies are realising this and are offering premium products in smaller packages or in lower price stock-keeping units.

First Published:Aug 30, 2019 1:11 PM IST