Gillette is a brand of Procter & Gamble currently used for safety razors, among other personal care products.

Based in Boston, Massachusetts,United States, it was one of several brands originally owned by The Gillette Company, a leading global supplier of products under various brands, which was merged into P&G in 2005. The original Gillette Company was founded by King Camp Gillette in 1895 as a safety razor manufacturer. On October 1, 2005, Procter & Gamble finalized its merger with The Gillette Company. As a result of this merger, the Gillette Company no longer exists. Its last day of market tradingsymbol G on the New York Stock Exchangewas September 30, 2005. The merger created the world's largest personal care and household products company. In addition to Gillette, the company marketed under Braun, Duracell and Oral-B, among others, have also been maintained by P&G. The Gillette company slogan is "The Best a Man Can Get". The Gillette Company's assets were initially incorporated into a P&G unit known internally as "Global Gillette". In July 2007, Global Gillette was dissolved and incorporated into Procter & Gamble's other two main divisions, Procter & Gamble Beauty and Procter & Gamble Household Care. Gillette's brands and products were divided between the two accordingly.

Fiscal 2010 proved to be a year of robust growth for Gillette India. After two years of declining profit growth, the FMCG major reported a growth of 21.2% in its net profit. The impressive growth in the year ended June 2010 is largely due to the buoyancy in its shaving products' business. However, the poor show of its other two divisions, including portable power and oral care impacted overall profitability. In the near term, the challenge will be to improve the performance of these two segments, which provide nearly one-third of its revenues. During the June quarter, its net profit halved to Rs 19 crore from the year ago level. This was despite a strong 37% jump in net sales to Rs 252 crore, the best growth in any of the quarters in the past three years. The company has attributed the sharp fall in its bottomline to the significant rise in marketing costs for its razor segment. Gillette India, a subsidiary of US-based P&G, reported a mixed performance for the June quarter. The maker of grooming products saw its sales increase by around 35 per cent during the quarter on the back of the stable performance of its razor division (Gillette), and higher growth rates from oral care (Oral-B) and batteries (Duracell) businesses. Razors & blades, which constitute more than two-thirds of revenues, grew about 25 per cent, while other businesses grew faster. A rollback of excise duty cuts from March this year could be partially responsible for the relatively slower sales growth in grooming products. Click here to visit SME Buzz Also Read Related News Stories Now - P&G Hygiene & Health Care: Hit by competition - Suzlon Energy: Low on power - Gillette June quarter PAT down 50% at Rs 19 cr - Expensive packaging

- Richly-valued IPO prices in future growth - Expensive antibiotic Also Read Related News Stories Now - Sensex ends down 229 pts - FinMin, Moody's will discuss sovereign rating on Nov 14 - Tata Steel Q2 profit plunges 93% to Rs 139 cr - Ipca Laboratories Q2 net dips 17% to Rs 77.96 cr - JSW Ispat posts Rs 345-cr loss in July-Sep quarter More On the profitability front, the company did not have the same fortune. In the June quarter, the companys profits dwindled by about half, compared to the same quarter last year. The main reasons were increases in raw material and inventory costs. Advertising and promotional costs also tripled on account of higher advertising in the personal care market for its existing products as well as new products.

Gillette Indias revenue of Rs.8.52 billion for FY2009-10 (July 09 to June 10) looks healthy given that it contributes to 19.4% of its parent Procter and Gambles India business (which amounts to Rs.44 billion). But Gillettes India glory-tale is chicken-feed when compared to the brands global revenue of roughly $8 billion! Understood that the brand globally contributes to a much lower 10.13% of the total sales of P&G, but the fact that India contributes just 2.37% of Gillettes total revenue invites nothing less than shame for a 28 year-old brand. Across the world, Gillette accounts for about 70% of the razors and blades sales, but in India, it has failed to live up to its spectacular global performance. And even though it is currently the market leader in the five billion-units-a-year razors and blades market in India with roughly 40% share, its performance here pales in significance to its global dominance. Just 10% of Indian men who shave use Gillette blades, compared with about 50% worldwide.

For its less-than-extraordinary show in India, critics often blame Gillettes premium positioning, its reluctance to innovate with low-priced products and its singular focus on developed markets, especially its home market, the US. In fact, it introduced razors quite late in India, and was initially present in the blades segment, selling brands like 7 OClock and Wilkinsons Sword, where the likes of Topaz made its living tough in the mass market. Higher operating costs impacted Gillette's profitability. For instance, in the June quarter, costs under the heads of raw material and advertising & promotion ate into nearly half of its revenue

FMCG firm Gillette today said it has roped in Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal as its brand ambassador.

"We are indeed very proud to associate with Arjun Rampal as our brand ambassador and he would now be immediately appearing on all the new March3 Turbo Sensitive advertisements," Gillette Brand Manager Sharat Verma said in a statement Gillette India Limited (GIL), one of India's leading FMCG companies, sells men's grooming products under brands like Gillette Mach 3 Turbo, Oral-B and Duracell.

Gillette takes Gamble, to shave off its sales channel

Bhanu Pande, TNN Jan 24, 2006, 01.15am IST
NEW DELHI: As part of Gillette's transition to the P&G distribution system, P&G will begin buyback of stocks from the former's dealers soon. As a result, Gillette's own robust distribution network will cease to exist. "The sales team has been issued instructions to do the settlement of stocks from Gillette distributors before March," said a company source. Gillette India MD Zubair Ahmed declined to confirm the move. "While we do not comment on speculation or rumours, we are happy to confirm that GIL will make a transition from its current distributor structure to P&G distributors," he told ET. Most of the sales staff is being laid off and with Gillette's headquarter relocating to Mumbai in July, whatever is left of the Gillette sales team, will sit in the P&G office in Delhi. The transition process is expected to be completed by March this year. It is, however, not clear if the Gillette Gurgaon office would be wound up. "Appropriate plans are being worked and we will share details as they are available," Mr Ahmed said.

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