Marico’s skin care services firm, which has just opened its 100th outlet, is pulling out all stops to make the brand viable Premium skin care brand Kaya Skin Clinic contributes just 7 per cent to Marico’s bottom line. And Chariman Harsh Mariwala believes Kaya needs to clock a turnover of Rs 400 crore before it becomes a viable venture. The current turnover is just half of that at Rs 200 crore.
Worse, Kaya has posted a loss of Rs 2 crore in the second quarter (July to September) compared to Rs 50 lakh loss in the whole of 2008-09. While the international business (mainly West Asia) is losing money, the silver lining, however, is that the domestic business is making profits.
Conventional logic in such cases would be to slow down a bit for the business to stabilise. But Kaya is on a rapid expansion mode. While the first four years saw the company setting up 45 clinics, the next three saw the addition of 55 – the latest was just a fortnight back in Guwahati. In the process, Kaya has become the world’s largest cosmetic dermatology chain. It has launched 16 clinics so far this year and a couple of more are in the offing before the calendar year ends. Of the 100 clinics, 87 are in India and the rest in West Asia. More.