Washing products manufacturers expect high sales in the year

The launch of new products and the migration to liquid soap versions should keep the market for washing heated products in the coming years. According to the consulting firm Mintel, only this year sales should grow 7.5%, to $ 10.5 billion. "The liquid soap still have a minor participation in the segment, but is growing and now migrating to concentrated versions", says the Executive President of the Brazilian Association of industries and related cleaning products (Abipla), Maria Eugenia Saldanha.
She noted that the sector has seen a rapid migration to liquid versions of SOAP, which should gradually replace the products presented in powder. Unilever, brand controller Omo, confirms that replacement movement. "We have seen an increasingly frequent migration of consumers from washing powder to the liquid," says the marketing manager of Omo, Pedro Jareguiberry.
The Executive does not reveal the number of sales of the brand, but second annual report released by the company, global sales of the segment totaled 1 billion euros in 2014.
Competition
For paulista Sobel, owner of the Supreme mark, migration to the consumption of SOAP in liquid version has helped to gain space in a market dominated by industry giants. The company expects to record a high of up to 40% of the volume produced, with the expansion of production capacity. Last year, the company produced 20% about 2013.
Cleaning products represent 15% to 18% of the business. "With the advancement of liquid soap category, smaller companies, like us, can compete with the big, what didn't happen in the SOAP powder", says the Director of Sobel, Márcio Savare.
He explains that the manufacture of washing powder requires complex structure and difficult to finance, which hindered the access of smaller companies.
"With the liquid soap competition has increased in recent years, which even has led to a reduction in the average price of the products," adds the Executive.
Savare believes that the price, is one of the main obstacles at the time of purchase and with the hardest economic scenario in 2015, customers have migrated to lesser known brands and with lower prices. "The consumer, generally, enters the category buying the leading brand, but with time you try other brands and to realize that the quality is the same, migra", bet the Director of Sobel.
Today, the leading category of liquid soap is the brand Ariel, Procter Gamble & (P&G), first to launch the product in the Brazilian market.
Trend
Concentrated versions of SOAP and fabric softener are also moving industry sales, but still face resistance from consumers.
"The challenge for manufacturers is now making people adopt concentrated versions," recalls the President of Abipla. She cites a study by a company in the sector, which indicates a saving of up to 74% on water consumed in the entire chain of production and consumption, if liquid fabric softener is replaced by concentrated.
"This provided the product is used correctly, which often doesn't happen," says Maria Eugenia Saldanha. She explains that this is because consumers do not have the habit to read the package label and misuse has been the main barrier to the product gain more shelf space.
"But the crisis of water can help leverage the category, with the increase in search for economic options," says.
Unilever has used the water savings as main advantage to promote the SOAP concentrate. "Our consumers are in search of conscious solutions and thinking that we launched the Omo Super concentrated, which saves about 40 percent of water in the manufacturing process compared to a regular product", says Jareguiberry.
Sobel, who already has a concentrated softener scheduled for release in the second half, identified the barrier and acknowledges that still need to educate consumers on the proper use.
In the cleaning products manufacturer AudaxCo, launching a concentrated fabric softener has been postponed. "We have developed product, but is not among our priorities facing the market today," says the company's marketing executive, Diego Velasquez. Sales of clothes cleaning products company, CITES him, represent 5% of the total and grew 10% in the last year.
According to him, the stiff competition among the companies already consolidated in the segment is one of the factors that led the AudaxCo to choose to concentrate efforts on selling professional line. "The domestic line consumption can even migrate a bit for other brands, but the great are going to fight hard to keep the market", believes viriathus.