India Instant Noodles Market - Growth, Trends, Covid-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

India Instant Noodles Market - Growth, Trends, Covid-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

India Instant Noodles Market is is expected to witness a CAGR of 5.6% during the forecast period (2022-2027).

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the resultant measures imposed by the Indian government have resulted in the strict closure of market to implement social distancing. Consumers preferred home cooked food and stocked essential food items at home in bulk, especially instant foods. The preference for home cooked food is expected to remain high even in the post pandemic. According to Mr. Kiyotaka Ando, the CEO of Nissin food holdings cooperative limited., the company registered a slight growth in its sales revenue and operating profit in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the previous years. Furthermore, the company has indicated that people prefered staying at home during the pandemic, which has boosted the market and is expected to boost the demand for this product type in the forthcoming years.

Over the medium term, the market is driven by the factor that the players coming up with a new segment of healthier noodles as the consumers in India have become more health conscious. Also, this has opened an opportunity for the players to tap on the innovation part on making instant noodles with functional benefits. Additionally, apart from the standard flavors, companies are coming up with new range of tastes and flavors, such as chinese, mix of masalas etc. This is going to further increase the demand for instant noodles among the children. Moreover, as instant noodles made from white flour was considered as unhealthy and players are coming up with noodles made from atta.

However, the raising concern about the health is the major restraint of the market, the unhealthy ingredients and the availability of other extruded snacks are expected to act as restraints to the market.

In the urban areas supermarkets/hypermarkets are the major channels of distribution of instant noodles. In urban areas people prefer to buy instant noodles along with their daily groceries. The easy accessibility to these supermarkets/hypermarkets is also a major factor boosting the sales of instant noodles through this channel. Also, availability of various supermarkets/hypermarket options in urban areas is also boosting the sales through the supermarkets and hypermarkets. The major players such as Maggi, Yipee, Knorr etc are selling their products through this channel. Due to the changing customer preferences, players are also introducing new varieties in the market. Supermarkets makes sure they avail all these products to attract more customers. Hence, Supermarkets/Hypermarkets holds the largest share in the distribution channels among others.

Convenient foods have become widely popular especially among working class people, teenage children, people living in hostels, bachelors, sharing rooms etc. Convenience foods are used to shorten the time of meal preparation at home. Some convenient foods can be eaten immediately or after adding some water, heating or thawing. Most of the convenience foods takes hardly less than 5 minutes to cook the food. They are often prepared or packaged before being consumed and can be used at any time, quickly and easily by thawing or heating the food. It is a fact that convenient foods are designed to be cheap, tasty and non-perishable. Instant noodles have become very popular because they can be served as a quickie snack or meal. Additionally, it may offer some fantastic perks such as less time spent in the kitchen or planning meals, less preparation time, fewer leftovers and easy cleaning up.

The Indian instant noodles market is highly consolidated with the top 5 companies holding more than 70% of the market share. Companies have been even coming up with various kinds of promotion strategies, such as price pay off, gifts etc. to attract consumers’ attention. Emphasis is given on the expansion, acquisition, and partnership of the companies, along with new product development as strategic approaches adopted by the leading companies to boost their brand presence among consumers.The prominent players of the market include Nestle Maggi, Unilever Knorr, Top Ramen, ITC (Sunfeast Yippe), and Capital Food India Ltd (Chings).

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