As ExxonMobil strives to strengthen its foothold in the Indian engine oil market, with various products under the Mobil 1 brand, we chat with their Marketing Manager - South Asia Pacific, Anirvan Roy, about their experience in the Indian market so far, the changing tastes of the Indian consumers, and where they see the future of engine oils going in the Indian market.
Despite being the largest petrochemical major in the world, your presence in India has been quite subdued – why is that?
The question of being in a certain position in the market is basically driven by the choices that a company has to make while entering the market, and you would know that many of our competitors have been in the Indian market for a longer duration than us – such as the public sector oil companies. Now, that’s not the primary reason of our position in India, but it is one of the reasons. The other factor is that it’s been a matter of choice for us to concentrate on various parts of our portfolio – from our global product and brand line up, to something that resonates with Indian consumers, OEM’s, and other partners. For example, if you look at the retail trade, our brands really resonate in the larger cities – where we’ve been expanding in a systematic manner. And our passenger vehicle segment sales have been increasing by double-digit percentages for the past many years – that’s been a primary area of focus for us. Another example includes the over-550 Mobil 1 Car Care outlets that we have in our portfolio today.
So, the multiple brands under the Mobil 1 umbrella are very well accepted, and we bring many other advantages to the consumer in terms of the heritage of the brand, the technology leadership, and, of course, OEM associations. Thus, the brand is on a journey in India, and we have a large portfolio of products to offer consumers in order to expand in a systematic manner. And, to that extent, we’re quite happy with the progress we’ve made on the various aspects of offering a meaningful contribution to various stakeholders – consumers, independent mechanics, workshops, and, of course, the OEM’s.
Exxon Mobil’s primary focus in India, as far as the aftermarket sector is concerned, has been largely in the premium synthetic oils segment with the Mobil 1 brand – which is a very niche segment. Why not also target the other oil segments for increased reach amongst consumers?
The thing is that Mobil 1 as a brand has a strength and a legacy of its own, and we, as a company, are very proud of the journey that has led to Mobil 1 being regarded as a leader in the synthetic oils segment. And it’s still under constant innovation, so that the products can satisfy the most demanding and extreme conditions while providing the highest-calibre of protection to engines. That being the case, we’ve seen that despite India’s reputation of being a small car market, there are consumers who insist on using only Mobil 1 products for their cars – and so Mobil 1 sales have expanded rapidly in India, even in the small car segments. However, we’re also concentrating on our other two product portfolios – Mobil Super and Mobil Delvac. The Mobil Super brand has been the key growth driver for our passenger vehicle lubricants business in India. In fact, we sell a lot more of Mobil Super lubricants compared to the Mobil 1 products. So, what I’m trying to say is that because of our wide range of offerings we’re not focusing only on a niche market. And the fact that the sales of our Mobil Super range has been on a double digit growth pattern for the past many years goes to show that there is acceptance of the Mobil Super line of products in the market. And on the Mobil Delvac side, sales in the aftermarket segment have also been rising. So, despite the economic environment over the past couple of years being on the slower side, the fact that we’ve been able to achieve growth in all three of our product lineups gives us confidence that consumers wants our products as a solution to their needs.
In your experience, has the Indian customer’s viewpoint changed in regards to the cost of synthetic oils vis-a-vis the benefits they provide – or is cost still the main deterrent for most consumers?
I think we definitely see a shift, and its been driven by a couple of different factors. Obviously one is vehicle regulation, and that is a uniform driver across the world. So, as we become more conscious about emissions, greenhouse gases, and energy efficiency, there has to be a movement towards a higher quality of engine oils. And you see that OEM’s are now increasingly recommending migrating from mineral oils to synthetic oils, and this is universally true for car manufacturers. So, this shift in quality is inevitable, and the more this shift takes place, the consumer preference for these oils too will change – and so the scale of the synthetic oils industry will also increase. We do see a larger play for synthetic oils – that happens in every market. And, as India goes through that developmental journey, driven by quality, regulations, and other factors, we can already see that shift happening. From our internal research, we see demand for synthetic products growing at a much faster rate than traditional products. So the growth curve is already there, and, from a customer’s perspective, we think that the synthetic oil will give them greater value due to its efficiency and benefits outweighing the cost perceived at the time of purchase as the total cost of ownership is lower in this case.
The Mobil 1 Car Care Outlet concept seems to be quite novel, especially in the Indian market where a lubricant major vouching for a workshop is rare. How has the response been from consumers?
As a complete offering in terms of the customer having a positive experience, while at the same time giving them convenience in terms of the locations of the outlets as well as the choice of a reliable lubricant oil as part of the solution is a unique initiative. The basic concept revolves around the customer who wants to make a choice, and desires a convenient and comfortable location where his vehicle can be serviced. Add to this peace of mind regarding the basic service and the quality of oil used in the car, and so our target market are customers who care about their automobiles. And we found that by having Mobil 1 outlets, the consumers are interested in lubricants as the oil change interval is the key driver for people to take their cars to service centres. So, instead of blindly trusting any mechanic or workshop with their cars, customers prefer exploring an experience of a workshop located near them. Secondly, they can observe the work being done on their car as the environment allows for it – and they have a convenient waiting area where there are people knowledgeable enough to advise them on the right oils for their needs and driving style. And executing this task in a quick time frame means that the customer’s time is not wasted as the car is worked on. The appeal of these outlets can be judged from the fact that we started from 2 outlets in 2010, and today we have over 550 outlets – and we’re very encouraged by the response we’ve got from Indian consumers.
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