INTRODUCTION

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest Fast Moving

Consumer Goods Company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians with
over 20distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods &
Beverages. The company’s Turnover is Rs. 20, 239 crores (for the 15 month period
± January1, 2008 to March 31, 2009).Hindustan unilever limited is a subsidiary of
Unilever, one of the world’s leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with
strong local roots in more than 100countries across the globe with annual sales of
¼40.5 billion in 2008. Unilever has about 52% shareholding in HUL.
Hindustan Unilever was recently rated among the
top four companies globally in the list of Global Top Companies for Leaders´ by a
study sponsored by Hewitt Associates, in partnership with Fortune magazine and
the RBL Group. The company was ranked number one in the Asia-Pacific region
and in India. The mission that inspires HUL's more than 15,000 employees,
including over 1,400 managers, is to ³add vitality to life". The company meets
everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care, with brands that help
people feel good, look good and get more out of life. It is a mission HUL shares
with its parent company, Unilever, which holds about 52 % of the equity

Heritage

HUL’s heritage dates back to 1888, when the first Unilever product, Sunlight, was
introduced in India. Local manufacturing began in the 1930s with the
establishment of subsidiary companies. They merged in 1956 to form Hindustan
Lever Limited (The company was renamed Hindustan Unilever Limited on June25,
2007). The company created history when it offered equity to Indian shareholders,
becoming the first foreign subsidiary company to do so.

Today, the company has more than three lakh resident shareholders.
HUL’s brands -- like Lifebuoy, Lux, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely,
Sunsilk, Clinic, Close-up, Pepsodent, Lakme, Brooke Bond, Kissan, Knorr,
Annapurna, Kwality-Walls - are household names across the country and
spanmany categories - soaps, detergents, personal products, tea, coffee, branded
staples, ice cream and culinary products. They are manufactured in over 35
factories, several of them in backward areas of the country. The operations involve
over 2,000 suppliers and associates. HUL's distribution network covers 6.3 million
retail outlets including direct reach to over 1 million. HUL has traditionally been a
company, which incorporates latest technology in all its operations. The Hindustan
Lever Research Centre (now Hindustan Unilever Research Centre) was set up in
1958
Doing well by doing good

HUL believes that an organisation’s worth is also in the service it renders to the
community. HUL focuses on hygiene, nutrition, enhancement of livelihoods,
reduction of greenhouse gases and water footprint. It is also involved in education
and rehabilitation of special or underprivileged children, care for the destitute and
HIV-positive, and rural development. HUL has also responded in case of national
calamities / adversities and contributes through various welfare measures, most
recent being the relief and rehabilitation of the people affected by the Tsunami
disaster, in India. HUL’s Project Shakti is a rural initiative that targets small
villages populated by less than 5000 individuals. Through Shakti, HUL is creating
micro-enterprise opportunities for rural women, thereby improving their livelihood
and the standard of living in rural communities. Shakti also provides health and
hygiene education through the Shakti Vani programme. The program now covers
15 states in India and has over 45,000 women entrepreneurs in its fold, reaching
out to 100,000villages and directly reaching to over three million rural consumers.
HUL also runs a rural health programme, Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana.
The programme endeavors to induce adoption of hygienic practices among rural
Indians and aims to bring down the incidence of diarrhea. It has already
touched120 million people in approximately 50, 676 villages across India
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Hindustan Unilever Limited is the Indian arm of the Anglo-Dutch

company Unilever. Both Unilever and HUL have established themselves well in
the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) category. In India, the company offers
many households brands like, Dove, Lifebuoy, Lipton, Lux, Pepsodent, Ponds,
Rexona, Sunsilk, Surf, Vaseline etc. Some of its efforts were also rewarded when
four of HUL brands found place in the µTop 10 brands’ list for the year 2008
published in The Economic Times. Unilever was a result of the merger between the
Dutch margarine company, Margarine Unie, and the British soap-maker, Lever
Brothers, way back in 1930.For 70 years, Unilever was the undisputed market
leader but now faces tough competition from Proctor & Gamble and Colgate-
Palmolive. HUL is also known for its strong distribution network in India. In order
to further strengthen its distribution in the rural areas and to empower the local
women, HUL launched a Project Shakti in 2000 in a district in Andhra Pradesh.
The idea behind this project was to create women entrepreneurs and provide them
with micro-credit and training in enterprise management, which would enable them
to create self-help groups and become direct-to-home distributors of HUL
products. Today Project Shakti is present across 80,000 villages in 15 states and is
helping many underprivileged women earn their livelihood. As the per-capita
income of India is increasing along with the Indian population. So, the future for
the FMCG Companies is bright. To analysis the past performance& the future
demand of HUL, FMCG products we have considered following points:

We have a listed the different FMCG product lines of HUL.

 We have done competitor’s analysis in which the market share of top FMCG
companies are analysed & the market share of HUL’S different categories
product are analysed with comparison to its competitors.

 The future opportunities for FMCG products are taken into consideration by
analyzing the increased per capita income & increased disposable income to
forecast the future demand of HUL
OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

 The main objective of this project is to find, what are the steps Hindustan
Unilever Ltd. is adapting to be market leader and to differentiate itself from
its competitors.

 What is the steps company is utilizing to find current trend in the market.

 To study various brands of HUL

 To study the competitive brands in the market of ,home care products.

food brands, personal care products

 To find the market share of the HUL brands and its competitive brands.

 To determine the key areas of strength and weakness for HUL brands To
develop a promotion plan for brand communication of the HUL

 To study various marketing strategies of HUL

Identification of the problem

The problems that Hindustan Unilever Limited currently facing is increasing input
costs and operations costs due to rise in raw material costs, increasing imitative
and spurious products, and stiff competition from other FMCG players.