FMCG, white goods makers pin hope on 2018 to erase woes of 2017

Interestingly, these firms believe the demand should be evenly distributed to urban and rural markets.

"With the market sentiments showing signs of improvement and stability returning post-GST implementation, we expect the demand scenario to move up, both in rural and urban markets," Whirlpool of India Managing Director Sunil D Souza told PTI.

Expressing similar views, Emami Ltd Director Harsha Vardhan Agarwal said retail and rural businesses have bounced back fully and are growing in healthy double digits while wholesale channel is yet to recover fully at about 80 per cent of the base.

"We believe that economic reforms like GST and demonetisation would help drive the economic growth in a structured way in the long term and we expect further improvement in our performance in the coming quarters," he said.

Sony India Head of Sales Satish Padmanabhan also said the industry is already seeing "positive comeback signs post the implementation of GST and expect 2018 to only be better".

Recollecting challenges faced in 2017, GCPL Business Head India and SAARC Sunil Kataria said, "Demonetisation was a black swan event for the Indian economy. Among many challenges, the biggest disruption was caused in the distribution network for FMCG companies."

Dabur India CFO Lalit Malik said: "In the short term, both demonetisation and GST impacted wholesale trade because of issues related to execution, and led to massive amount of destocking across the trade channel."

With the hurdles now history, the companies, specially electronic goods and appliances makers are gearing up to bring innovative products to woo consumers to showrooms in 2018.

"In 2018, we will continue to bring industry first innovations for Indian consumers with an exciting lineup of future-ready products," Samsung India VP Consumer Electronics Business Rajeev Bhutani said.

Samsung will kick-start 2018 with the world's first innovation in the AC segment that would take the consumer convenience and comfort to the next level, he claimed.

Likewise, Padmanabhan said Sony India would also continue to roll out "technologically advanced products across categories in the future and keep our customers engaged with Sony products".

Panasonic India is also not lagging behind in its plans for new products with a major transition in portfolio and positioning in the offing.

"We will strengthen as a comprehensive consumer electronics maker to offer solutions that fulfils the wishes of customers, while improving our individual products," Panasonic India and South Asia President and CEO Manish Sharma said.

When contacted, a spokesperson for LG India said, "Product leadership is the key and we will continue bringing newer technologies based on Indian consumer insights."

With the government pushing for domestic manufacturing, Sharma, who is also President of Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) said the industry expects ratio of local manufacturing to increase going forward.

"The industry acknowledges the pro-industry reforms undertaken by government and is looking forward to the Phased Manufacturing Program (PMP) policy in 2018 which in turn will boost indigenous manufacturing," he said.