Multinationals oscillate between ensure and market slices

Traditionally more resilient by the strength of its brands and by the size of their portfolios, multinationals that manufacture consumer goods products are final with a mixed strategy in Brazil: increase prices, trying to maintain profit margins, while the volume sold falls; and the sale of items more accessible to ensure or expand your slices in the market.
The scenario is widespread consumption fall. The volume of sales of beverages, perishable, grocery, cleaning and hygiene products and beauty fell 4.2%, from January to August, compared to a year earlier, according to Nielsen. In value, the lower is 3.7%. In this consumer basket, by volume, the category less suffered was the salt grocery (1.7%) indentation, while non-alcoholic beverages showed the deepest fall (7%). Perishable consumption, alcoholic beverages and homemade cleaning fell by about 4%.
Kimberly-Clark, which produces the diapers Huggies, Intimus absorbers and the Kleenex stock, saw the exchange for cheaper brands accelerate in Brazil. Organic sales (excluding acquisitions, sales and Exchange) fell 5% compared to the previous year, due to falling volume. "The results were impacts for more promotional activity and a more difficult economic environment," said CEO Thomas Falk commenting the results on October 24.
In the category of diapers for more discounts and exchange for cheaper brands in Brazil, said Falk. In addition, he noticed a reduction of use. "Mothers who used four or five diapers a day now use only three or four." According to him, can be both a reduction of inventories in the homes as a symptom of the middle class becoming poorer and reducing consumption. "You get a diaper a day out of the equation, and is a two-digit fall in the category for that consumer."
The economic environment remains difficult and the Outlook is not optimistic, both in Brazil and in Argentina, said the global Director of Kimberly-Clark. "The savings depend on expectations and, until people start to believe that things will get better, probably there will be no recovery."