Swedish personal care company Oriflame has decided to roll out 25-30 products on a monthly basis, and hire 50,000 more individuals to tap the booming Indian cosmetics market, already a $5.4 billion industry rising at 12% annually.

Marcus Sandström, Oriflame India's new managing director, stated, "In Asia, India is the most important market, besides China. In the coming year, I see it as the largest market for us. Our ultimate aim is that Oriflame should be a 'must-have' brand in India."

"We intend to make Oriflame number one beauty company in the country. We will launch 25-30 products across all categories every month and also take the number of consultants (salespeople) to 200,000 2 from the present
150,000," Marcus told.

According to Marcus, Oriflame's India operation has been growing at 40% as against the overall industry growth of 12%.

India is its fifth major market zone after Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Poland.

The 12 monthly sales of Oriflame surpassed $1.6 billion and 10% of that came from Asia.

Sandström said that the company's permanent headcount in India, which is headquartered in the national capital with 12 offices across the country, will also go up 400 by December 2010 from the existing 375. Nearly 95 percent of the company's sales team comprises women.

Oriflame has a total of five global production facilities, of which three are in Europe, and one each in India and China.

When asked about the new product lines the company planned in India, Sandström said the focus will be on cosmetics.

Oriflame India is also making an investment of about $7.3 million on business social responsibility activities. It is in engaged in two projects here - "Deepalaya" and "Hand in Hand" for girl child development and self-help micro-finance projects for underprivileged women.

"Girl child development and women empowerment are the focus areas on our corporate social responsibility front," Sandström added. (With Inputs from Agencies)