India's new-age consumer brands — termed "insurgent" by analysts — are disrupting the country's consumer packaged goods landscape, growing more than three times faster than the broader market and collectively generating an estimated $7.5 billion in revenue in FY25, according to a report by Bain & Company and DSG Consumer Partners. That figure is up from $2 billion five years ago, underscoring the rapid scaling of challenger brands across categories from jewellery to beauty and personal care.
"Consumer insurgents continue to significantly outpace the broader market. While they still account for less than 2% of most categories (with the exception of beauty & personal care), they are growing much faster than the category average," said Hariharan Premkumar, managing director and head of DSG Consumer Partners India.
Revenue and Market Share
Despite their rapid expansion, insurgent brands still command a small slice of total category sales — generally less than 2% in most segments. The exception is beauty and personal care, where insurgents have captured a notably larger share. Bain's analysis indicates that these challengers are winning by targeting unmet or latent consumer needs, leveraging digital commerce and quick-commerce platforms, and launching products at a rapid pace.
Rohit Shankar, partner at Bain & Company, noted: "Indian insurgent brands have fundamentally changed how consumer categories are built and scaled in India. They are winning by focusing on emerging or latent consumer needs, building mastery in media and channel deployment, and high velocity innovation. These capabilities have enabled insurgents not only to disrupt established categories and take share from incumbents, but also to create entirely new growth pools."
Growth by Category: Insurgents vs. Broader Market
| Category | Insurgent Growth Rate (vs. Broader Market) | Time Period |
|---|---|---|
| Jewellery | ~6.5x faster | Last 5 years |
| Beauty & Personal Care | ~6x faster | Last 5 years |
| Home & Kitchen | Significantly faster | Last 5 years |
| Wearables & Devices | Significantly faster | Last 5 years |
The data, sourced from Bain & Company's analysis, shows that insurgent jewellery brands grew nearly 6.5 times faster than the broader jewellery market over the last five years, while beauty and personal care insurgents expanded six times faster. Home and kitchen, as well as wearables and devices, also recorded outsized growth, though exact multiples were not specified in the report.
Quick Commerce as a Catalyst
Quick commerce has emerged as a critical enabler for these insurgent brands. According to Shankar, "Among an important enabler for the next generation of consumer insurgents has been digital commerce and more recently quick commerce, which requires a new-to-CPG ‘consumer tech’ like muscle. Insurgents have taken the lead in this channel, building spikes in nine must-win capability areas."
This channel allows insurgents to bypass traditional retail bottlenecks and reach consumers faster, a capability that many larger, established FMCG players have been slower to develop.
The Challenge of Scale
While the growth story is impressive, breaking out of early-stage success remains daunting. Bain & Company found that less than 1% of consumer companies founded since 2008 have crossed Rs 100 crore (approximately $12 million) in revenue. Moreover, of the insurgent brands that do surpass that threshold, only 22% have grown beyond Rs 500 crore ($60 million). This stark statistic highlights how few challengers manage to achieve enduring scale and suggests that the ecosystem, while vibrant, is highly selective in producing large, lasting enterprises.
The pressure to scale is intensifying as larger incumbent players respond by accelerating their own digital and quick-commerce strategies, potentially narrowing the window for insurgents to consolidate their gains. For investors and corporate strategy teams, the key question will be which insurgent brands can transition from high-growth disruptors to sustainable, profitable businesses.
The findings were published in a report by Bain & Company and DSG Consumer Partners, which has tracked the emergence of insurgent brands in India over the past five years. No specific next earnings date or regulatory milestone was mentioned in the source, but market participants will be closely watching how these challengers perform in the upcoming quarters as competition heats up.
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