Indian brands win 34% of body lotion sales on Amazon India. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, they win under 2%.
We read the body lotion shelf in nine markets on one day. Amazon in three countries, plus Flipkart, Nykaa, Blinkit, Watsons in six countries, and Sociolla. At home, Indian brands hold a third of the money. Next door in the Gulf, where millions of Indians live, they hold almost none of it.
Read this first
Only Amazon shows how many units a product sold, so only Amazon gives us money. Every money figure here is a floor: what buyers paid on Amazon for the products we read. It is not a company's revenue. We never convert currencies and we never add countries together.
We read this during a festive sale. On the day we read it, 26% of Flipkart's body lotion products carried a “Big Billion Days” price. Amazon's sales badge counts the past month, so the sale is inside these numbers.
India: two brands take 40% of the money
Amazon India sells at least ₹98.9 crore of body lotion a year, about 209,600 bottles a month. Nivea and Vaseline take 40% of it between them. Indian D2C brands take 17.7%, or ₹17.5 crore.
| Owner group | Share of sales | Sales a year, at least | Brands | Median ₹ per 100 ml |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multinational | 65.8% | ₹65.1 crore | 10 | 108 |
| Indian D2C challenger | 17.7% | ₹17.5 crore | 15 | 134 |
| Indian corporate and legacy | 8.6% | ₹8.5 crore | 8 | 55 |
| Indian pharma | 7.9% | ₹7.8 crore | 2 | 191 |
| Brand | Owner | Share | ₹ per 100 ml |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nivea | Multinational | 20.1% | 69 |
| Vaseline | Multinational | 19.8% | 80 |
| Cetaphil | Multinational | 12.1% | 513 |
| Venusia | Indian pharma | 7.4% | 226 |
| mCaffeine | Indian D2C challenger | 5.6% | 125 |
| CeraVe | Multinational | 4.9% | 481 |
| Parachute | Indian corporate and legacy | 4.0% | 35 |
| Aveeno | Multinational | 4.0% | 325 |
| ORIMII | Indian D2C challenger | 2.2% | 626 |
| Mamaearth | Indian D2C challenger | 1.5% | 68 |
Indian D2C brands charge only a little more than the multinationals: ₹134 per 100 ml against ₹108. And 83% of the money goes to body lotion made in India, by Amazon's own country-of-origin field.
The Gulf: Indian brands are listed, but they do not sell
We expected Indian brands to do well on Amazon in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Millions of Indians live there, and many Indian brands already list on both sites. They almost do not sell.
| Amazon UAE | Amazon Saudi Arabia | |
|---|---|---|
| Body lotion sales a year, at least | AED 8.32 million | SAR 13.50 million |
| Indian-owned brands | 1.6% | 1.7% |
| Indian D2C price per 100 ml, against the multinationals | 2.0× | 3.6× |
These Indian brands are on both sites: Chemist at Play, Dabur, Dr. Sheth’s, Enchanteur, Himalaya, Minimalist, Parachute, The Derma Co, WishCare, Yardley, mCaffeine. At home an Indian D2C body lotion costs 1.24 times the multinational price. In the UAE it costs 2.0 times. In Saudi Arabia it costs 3.6 times.
The largest Indian-owned body lotion in Saudi Arabia is Enchanteur, at 1.5% of sales. Wipro owns it through Wipro Unza, which it bought in 2007. It is made in Malaysia. So the most successful Indian body lotion in the Gulf is not an Indian product at all.
We do not know why Indian brands sell so little there. The price gap is one difference we can see. Reviews, delivery and search ranking are others we did not measure.
Blinkit cut prices before the cold arrived
We read the same six Blinkit dark stores on 11 September and again on 1 October. Body lotion listings went from 381 to 549, and 32 products were new. Of the 198 prices that changed, 158 went down. Across all of them, the median change was 11% down.
| Dark store | 11 Sep | 1 Oct | Product |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connaught Place | ₹227 | ₹128 | Biotique Winter Cherry Rejuvenating Body Lotion |
| Powai | ₹187 | ₹108 | Biotique Winter Cherry Rejuvenating Body Lotion |
| Koramangala | ₹164 | ₹99 | Biotique Creamy Coconut Deep Nourish Body Lotion |
| Powai | ₹164 | ₹99 | Biotique Creamy Coconut Deep Nourish Body Lotion |
| Banjara Hills | ₹164 | ₹99 | Biotique Creamy Coconut Deep Nourish Body Lotion |
A festive sale was running on 1 October, so we cannot split the season from the sale. The direction is clear either way. 11 brands sell body lotion on all four Indian platforms we read: Be Bodywise, Chemist at Play, Himalaya, Joy, Mamaearth, Nivea, Parachute, Pond’s, Vaseline, WishCare, mCaffeine.
South-East Asia: body lotion built to brighten
Watsons publishes the full ingredient list for its products. So we can see what is inside the bottle in each market, not only what the label claims.
| Share of body lotions that contain | Malaysia | Philippines | Singapore | Thailand | Vietnam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Niacinamide | 48% | 47% | 38% | 41% | 35% |
| Glutathione | 15% | 12% | 10% | 21% | 6% |
| UV filter | 42% | 44% | 30% | 36% | 36% |
| Ceramide | 22% | 7% | 26% | 19% | 0% |
On Watsons, 23% to 52% of body lotion names promise brighter or whiter skin. On the four Indian platforms, 13% to 18% do. The only Indian-owned brands on these shelves are Enchanteur and Himalaya.
An ingredient being there does not tell you how much is in the bottle. Watsons is one retailer, not the whole market. Indonesia publishes no ingredient lists, so it is not in the table.
What we expected, and got wrong
We wrote down five predictions before we read the shelf. 2 of them were right.
| We said | We found | |
|---|---|---|
| Multinationals take 50 to 65% of Amazon India | 65.8% | Wrong |
| Indian D2C takes 15 to 25% | 17.7% | Right |
| The top three brands take over 45% | 51.9% | Right |
| D2C costs 1.5 times the multinationals or more | 1.24 times | Wrong |
| Vaseline is the largest brand | Nivea first, Vaseline second | Wrong |
How we read it, and what it cannot tell you
Amazon in all three countries: the same four searches, three pages each (body lotion, body moisturiser, body butter, body lotion for dry skin). For the top 80 products in each country we opened the product page to confirm the brand and the country of origin. Watsons and Sociolla: each platform's own body lotion category. Nykaa: the first ten pages of its body lotion category. Flipkart: the same four searches. Blinkit: six dark stores.
Baby lotion, sunscreen, body wash, hand cream and face products are left out. Body lotion with SPF stays in. We look up who owns each brand and record the source. We never guess.
What this cannot tell you: total market size, because we see Amazon and not shops; a normal week, because this was a sale; revenue, because we see what buyers paid, not what brands kept; share of sales outside Amazon; and why any of it happens.
The full report, with every table and chart, is here: body lotion across nine markets (PDF).
Free account
See this for the niche you’re weighing
impuls8 reads category shelves across platforms and countries, and reads them again to show what moved. Your own dashboard shows you your shelf and nobody else's.
Start free — track your niche →No card. Google sign-in, 10 seconds.