Amway India to open R&D Centre for health, beauty segments

Amway India, a direct selling FMCG firm, is planning to open research and development centre soon in India for manufacturing specific products, under the ayurvedic, organic in health and beauty segments among others.

According to the company, a team from the US will visit India in February 2013 to decide on setting up the R&D centre.

Amway India MD and CEO William Pinckney was cited by the newspaper The Economic Times as telling PTI that the firm’s focus is on India, and globally, it is on health and beauty categories, as there is a lot of potential.

"We will open R&D centre in India. The focus of (R&D) will be on opportunities in India and on exactly types of things, whether on ayurvedic products or organic products or other products that work for India," Pinckney added.

The firm has recently announced the construction of new facility in Tamil Nadu state, which will primarily focus on manufacturing healthcare and beauty products to provide the growing demand in the country.

He also stated that with the new facility the firm’s contract manufacturers will focus on homecare and personal care products.

Amway India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amway, USA, which has its presence in 80 countries.

The company operates four segments such as healthcare, beauty segment, personal care and home care.

Amway’s health and beauty care segments have grown sharply on the back of product’s growing acceptability in the country as these segments alone contributes 55% of company’s total sales which is expected to touch INR24bn($454m) mark in 2012.