According to a report in The Hindu, Nobel Hygiene, a maker of baby and adult diapers in India, has plans to expand its capacity by setting up a new manufacturing facility in North India. 

“We have seen the demand for adult diapers growing from zero in 2000 to approximately 10 crore (100 million) pieces in 2016,” says Kamal Kumar Johari, managing director, Nobel Hygiene. “Besides, the baby diapers market is growing at 25-30% a year. So, we are planning to set up a new factory in North India, either in NCR Delhi or in Uttar Pradesh this year.”

Johari told the Hindu that the company would invest ₹25 crore ($3.8 million) in the new manufacturing facility. Nobel Hygiene currently operates a factory in Nashik in Maharashtra where it has six manufacturing lines with fully-automated machines that produce adult and baby diapers, underpads and baby diaper pants. Nobel Hygiene is also considering opening a manufacturing site outside of India, Johari added.

The Indian diaper market is dominated by Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark and Unicharm, which manufacture and sell their brands Pampers, Huggies and MamyPoko, respectively. Nobel Hygiene’s brands are Friends for adult diapers and Teddyy for baby diapers.

Johari said his company had been growing at 30-40% for the last seven years as compared with the average industry growth of 20-25%. “We are the only company in India which manufactures all types of diapers and underpads. Besides, we have designed diapers as per the Indian body structure and thus our diapers do not leak,” he says, adding that the penetration level of diapers in India is 6% versus 35% in China. “This leaves vast scope for growth,”Johari says.

He said the company is targeting to manufacture 20 lakh (two million) pieces of diapers per day by 2019 as compared to 10 to 12 lakh (one million to 1.2 million) pieces currently. The company exports to the Middle East, Africa, Central Europe and the U.S.