Despite overall sector growth, smaller brands in India’s fast-moving consumer goods market are finding it increasingly difficult to increase their consumer reach, highlighting the rising importance of scale amid uneven category performance.
India’s fast-moving consumer goods market is becoming more difficult for smaller brands to crack, even as the sector as a whole continues to expand. Worldpanel by Numerator’s Brand Footprint India 2026 report found that only 56% of low-penetration brands increased their consumer reach in 2025, far below the 83% recorded by highly penetrated brands and 78% for mid-sized players.
The numbers underline how scale is becoming more important in a market where visibility alone is no longer enough. Consumer reach points, a measure that combines the number of households buying a brand with how often they buy it, rose 5.1% to 129 billion in 2025 from 123 billion a year earlier. Growth was uneven across categories, however, with beverages, home care and health and beauty outperforming food and dairy.
K Ramakrishnan, managing director for South Asia at Worldpanel by Numerator, said large and mid-sized brands were delivering strong consumer reach point gains, while only about half of smaller brands managed to grow at all. Even so, the report showed that regional and challenger brands are still finding ways to break through. Balaji entered the in-home FMCG top 10 for the first time, taking ninth place with 2,876 million consumer reach points, while Rin returned to the top 25 after two years away and Sunrise and Exo each climbed sharply.
The rankings also highlighted the importance of purchase frequency, not just household penetration. Dairy brands, though bought by fewer households than some other categories, can generate strong reach because consumers purchase them repeatedly. Parle held the No. 1 in-home position for a 14th straight year with 8,515 million consumer reach points, followed by Britannia on 8,296 million. Britannia also stayed top of the out-of-home category, while Amul moved into the top five out-of-home brands for the first time. Worldpanel by Numerator, which tracks consumer behaviour across urban and rural India as well as different income groups, said its India panel covers 427 FMCG brands across food, beverages, dairy, health and beauty and home care.
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