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Hi,
Duracell happens to be the best selling battery in the PREMIUM segment, not only in india, but worldwide. Where duracell is supposed to be used, ie, where alkaline batteries are supposed to be used, some people who do not know any better still use regular batteries,only having to change them again and again, is not gillettes fault, but the consumers lack of awareness and also his being penny wise pounds foolish.
Further there are many variants of duracell, not introduced in india, but available abroad, which are even more powerful and long lasting.

As far as the toothbrushes go, i do not think you have seen the complete range of oral b toothbrushes available in the market, their exceed model (the one i am usng presently) is better than most i have used and this is not a biased opinion. Also they have other models, better than many others availalbe. Anyway,in toothbrushes, oral b only has competition from colgate, as hll`s products are useless in this segment anyway.

Further,oral b has lots of electronic toothbrushes available, probabaly the hottest selling ranging from $35 to $150 in the US. Market here in india is not developed for these products and hence they have not been introduced yet, but i can assure you, oral b is second to none in its product range.

In any case, problem with gillette was not product innovation,but actually the opposite. They had premium products , most being above price range of the so called indian middle class.

Now that problem DOES NOT exist, as the oral b toothbrushes can be had at under rs.15 and also cheaper razors and blades are available from gillette.

Look at their vector model. Available for under rs.40 (the entire set) and blades are cheap too, but the shaving experience is better than ANY other product that might be available.. they also have disposables and of coarse the mach 3.
In the US, they have electronic mach 3, which again has not been introduced here so far, but that is only because the market here is not mature to use such products(by mature i mean, people do not spend much on their hygeine and thats the problem).

as far as gillette is concerned, its not the product that is the problem, the problem is quite something else and i can assure you, thats going to change .... in fact is already changing, but will change exponentialy with time as indians are getting more and more hygeine conscious.

if gillette had thought success in america means success in india, they would have introduced all the newer (more expensive ) models here , but they did not, hence proving that they know india is a very price conscious market and under the circumstances i think they are doing a good job...its just a matter of time now.

Also, it is to be noted that gillette stock price was about 2400 a few years back and only dropped when they bought that ill fated geep battery market, which is now sorted out, but the stock market did not forgive them for all these years.. but that too will soon change.

Just my honest opinion.
best wishes,
samir


****/ As posted by Samir Arora on MMB /****

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