Charmin follows Andrex in reducing sheet count

Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) Charmin Ultra, launched in February last year (MW January 27, 2000), is set to become the toilet roll brand with the lowest number of sheets per roll in the UK market.

The move is in response to Kimberly-Clark’s (K-C) decision to cut both prices and sheet count for its Andrex brand this summer.

Early next year, Charmin Ultra will be reduced from 192 sheets to 180 per roll. K-C has already reduced the number of sheets in each Andrex roll from 280 to 240 and dropped the price of its twoand four-roll packs by about five per cent (MW August 9)

P&G plans to reduce the price of a two-roll pack of Charmin Ultra by nine per cent, to about 99p, next year. The price of a four-roll pack will be reduced by 15 per cent to £1.69. Charmin Ultra’s sheet count reduction will coincide with its rebranding as Charmin Comfort.

A household goods buyer says: “K-C reduced the Andrex sheet count and prices because it expected consumers to come back more often to buy the product and increase its volume sales.

“But that has not happened. There is a lot of choice in the market and retailers are doing a lot of promotional activity for their own-branded toilet paper as well.”

According to buyers, K-C’s move has resulted in flat volume sales for Andrex, and sales by value have fallen by 13 per cent.

However, according to K-C’s October figures, Andrex sales by value are up by 22.8 per cent and its share of the market by value has risen from a fifth to 27.5 per cent.