Mamaearth shift paying off

Parent Honasa Consumer got its hands dirty over a painful distribution overhaul—but it's finally showing results

- Sowmya Ramasubramanian

After nearly four painful quarters, Honasa Consumer Ltd's decision to transform its distribution model—from superstockists to direct distributors, following in the footsteps of consumer goods giants—is starting to bear fruit.

The parent company of beauty brand Mamaearth saw revenue contribution from its direct distributors nearly double in the January-March quarter, resulting in a 13% year-on-year revenue growth to ₹533 crore.

While Honasa's fourth-quarter profit fell 17% from a year earlier to ₹25 crore, its distribution model reached more than 100,000 distributors in 2024-25, doubling in one year.

"All of this has happened because of the direct distribution transition that we have done. Our direct distributor contribution has gone from 38% to 71%, which is what we had planned for as we ended the year," Varun Alagh, co-founder and chief executive of Honasa, said during a post-earnings call with analysts in May.

Mamaearth's distribution model transition was complete, he added.

However, the process, which stretched for about a year, proved cumbersome for some distributors, especially those with piles of unsold products in tier-2 and tier-3 regions where stock moves slowly.

"My ties with Mamaearth ended about four months ago but the process went on for very long. We were hoping it could have happened more smoothly," said a distributor in Maharashtra, asking not to be named.