Splash continues to gain market share

MANILA, Philippines - Beauty and personal care products manufacturer Splash Corp. continues to gain in the local market with its products steadily improving their market positions based on the latest AC Nielsen Report for July 2010.

Vitress, the industry’s leading hair cuticle coat product, has strengthened its market dominance by notching up a share of more than 60 percent.

Maxipeel soap has likewise surpassed competition and now leads the exfoliant soap category, owning over two-thirds of that segment while SkinWhite Face Cream has landed on second spot in the whitening face category, threatening the dominance of multinational rival Unilever.

The group’s Shades powder hair dye, though just newly introduced, has already grabbed more than 30 percent of the powder hair dye category.

All performance indicators show that the company has exceeded expectations. Its domestic operations grew 12 percent while its international operations improved 55 percent versus the previous year.

To streamline operations and further improve efficiency, Splash has let go of several several non-performing distributors that have weighed down its operations.

Sources said the newly appointed distributors have already exceeded previous average sales by 50 percent to 100 percent.

Given the strong performances of its products, Splash said it is confident it would end the year in possitive territory.

To further boost sales, Splash is branching out into the estimated P10 billion anti-bacterials business starting with water-based and gel-based hand sanitizers and alcohol, through the Hygienix brand. Plans also include the sale of anti-bacterial soap and deodorant.

The company is eyeing P100 million in sales in the first year and expects this figure to doule or triple by 2014.

Splash was named as one of the best managed companies in Asia by Hong Kong-based financial publishing giant FinanceAsia for the third consecutive year since 2008.

The Hortaleza-led firm started with a capital of only P12,000 in 1985 and has since grown into a billion-peso company.