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In August when ITC cornered a share of more than 28% in cream biscuits in urban India as per Nielsen data, it was a wake-up call for the largest cream biscuits maker Britannia. Although Britannia did not share data with ET, numbers obtained from an industry official suggests that ITC may have nosed ahead of Britannia in this segment by roughly 1 percentage point, at least for the month of August. However, both ITC and Britannia declined to confirm this (Britannia did not respond to an email with questions on the threat from ITC).

Biscuits is just one fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) category in which the cigarette, hotel, paper and packaging giant has garnered scale and share. Within foods, salty snacks and noodles are two categories in which ITC is making rapid gains; and, in personal care, the Kolkata-headquartered marketer is making headway with its shampoos, skin care, and soaps. This combined assault within the consumer space-along with contributions from fragmented categories like stationery - helped ITC's non-cigarette FMCG business clock a top line of Rs 5,545 crore in fiscal year 2012, with foods bringing in 60% of those revenues. More importantly, the company has hit near breakeven levels, according to a recent Credit Suisse report.

"Despite being relatively new in all these segments, we have been witnessing rapid growth and have established significant market standing across most categories," says ITC Ltd executive director Kurush Grant, who heads the FMCG business that includes cigarettes, packaged foods, personal care products and stationery products. If, in cream biscuits, ITC is taking the fight to Britannia's labels like Bourbon, Treat and Pure Magic with its own battery of brands like Dark Fantasy, Choco Fills and Dual Dream Cream, in noodles it has thrown down the gauntlet at Nestle's Maggi. As per the recent Credit Suisse report, ITC's instant noodles brand Sunfeast Yippee! has gained double-digit market share within two years of launch, and is the second largest brand after Maggi.

Nestle has now started to offer aggressive discounts and incentives to retailers on Maggi to protect its market share. Although a Nestle India spokesperson termed the initiative as a dealer engagement programme, a recent report by Kotak Institutional Equities said Nestle's discount scheme for Maggi is possibly the first in 10-15 years. Credit Suisse also points out that in salty snacks, ITC had gained a 15% market share in June with Bingo! potato chips, a business that has broken even in five years. PepsiCo is the leader in this business, and its spokesman said the company has strengthened its market position over the past year with the help of 25 new product and variant launches, including Baked Lay's, Aliva Multigrain Waves, Kurkure Puffcorn and Kurkure Monster Paws.

In personal care, the Credit Suisse report says ITC has gained a 6% share in the highly competitive soaps market within four years of launch and 2% in shampoos.

Manish Jain, a financial analyst with Nomura Equities Research, says the gain in market share in soaps is impressive, considering the presence of established players like Hindustan Unilever and Godrej Consumer Products. "The shampoo performance has been somewhat underwhelming, although the anti-dandruff segment is growing faster.

To correct this, ITC has re-launched various varieties," adds Jain. Devendra Chawla, president, Food Bazaar category at India's largest retailer Future Group, says the success rate of ITC' FMCG brands is better than the norm in the FMCG industry in which 70% of the launches don't make the cut after the first two years. "ITC has shown the courage to launch multiple products in a year unlike most other FMCG companies that might launch at best 2-3 products annually," says Chawla.

ITC's decision to begin bottom-up in FMCG may have worked in its favour. As Credit Suisse analyst Arnab Mitra says: "Unlike P&G, which starts with premium products and slowly moves down the pyramid, ITC has started at the bottom of the pyramid to build volumes in trade, leveraging its strong distribution, and then focused on premium products backed by very strong advertising support."

ITC recently revamped the entire FMCG portfolio by launching a richer and premium variant at each level. As Mitra points out, ITC has managed to reduce the share of mass market glucose biscuits from over half of biscuit sales five years back to less than a fourth now with premium launches like Sunfeast Dark Fantasy.

And, in staples, ITC has consolidated its leadership position aided by the strong performance of Aashirvaad Multi Grain atta. In personal care, ITC has launched premium products across its three main brands: Fiama Di Wills, Vivel and Superia. ITC's divisional chief executive (personal care) Sandeep Kaul says the Vivel brand is now used by one-fifth of Indian households.