has done it.
So has
Michael Vaughan.
And, closer home,
Virender Sehwag.
So, it was no surprise that Sahil Madan, now 28, decided, to do something about his receding hairline. He spent
Rs.81,000 for the treatment and says he is satisfied with the result.
Customers
such as Madan—young, urban, well-heeled and just that little bit vain
about how they look—are the reason why newspapers and magazines are
replete with before-after ads for hair clinics that offer anything from a
treatment to a complete transplant.
“Today,
we’re not just dealing with extreme cases of baldness. We are seeing a
number of young people coming to us to improve the quality and thickness
of their hair, so they can experiment with different styles and looks,”
says
Sanket Shah, chief executive officer at Advanced Hair Studio that has branches in India and the Middle East.
The company boasts a clientele that includes Warne (who appears in an ad for it wearing a T-shirt saying “No Hair, No Life”),
Sourav Ganguly and
Jacques Kallis (surely, there must be a connection between cricket and hair?).
Not everyone who wants a transplant is necessarily going bald, says
Arihant Surana, who has been in the business of implanting hair for half a decade.
“Earlier
transplants were linked to baldness; now (people go in for them
because) looks also play an important role,” adds Surana, currently
medical director (India) at Alvi Armani International, an American chain
of hair transplant clinics that claims to have re-maned some of the
biggest names in Bollywood and Hollywood, a member of a royal family, a
famous football player, and executives at Fortune 500 companies.
Indeed,
in recent years, grooming has becoming important, even to men, and a
mini-boom for everything from beauty salons to cosmetics to hair weaving
and hair transplant centres is the result.
“India
is passing through a phase where grooming is big business. Looking good
is considered very important, and more people are spending money on
products that do that, especially men. Over 75% of this market is
dominated by men. Younger men, as young as 23-24 years old, are
increasingly looking at getting hair transplants done,” says
Gaurav Marya,
chairman of Franchise India Holdings Ltd, a company that specializes in
franchising, which has clients such as Dr A, ADHI India and DHI India.
In 2010, the global hair restoration industry was worth $1.9 billion (around Rs.10,260
crore today) and India contributed 14% of that, according to a 2012
report by Francorp, an arm of Franchise India. The market grew at an
average rate of 22% over the past three years and is expected to grow by
37% between 2012 and 2015, it said.
Analysts
said hair care treatment is much more expensive in the West compared
with India. The average cost of transplantation in the US is about $4.5
per follicle against just $1.75 per follicle in India, the Francorp
report said.
And
it no longer appears to be about a mid-life crisis. From 35-40, five
years ago, the average age of his patients has fallen to 25-30, claims
Surana. Men looking to get married or promoted form the majority of the
patients.
It
isn’t just men. According to Advanced Hair Studio’s Shah, the hair loss
problem that was predominantly a “male” issue now also brings in a fair
number of women. “Socially, in a country like India, it is perfectly
acceptable for a man to be bald. However, this does not hold true for
women. Six years ago, 85% of our clients were men and 15% of our clients
were women. Today, that percentage of women walking through our doors
with hair-related issues has risen to 40%,” he says.
The result is a market that is slowly moving towards being more affordable.
Arpit Goel,
head of marketing at New Delhi-based Berkowits Hair and Skin Clinic,
says that pricing has declined with more companies entering the business
and better technology.
“It’s not for the super rich any more; the upper-middle class, too, can afford it now,” adds Goel who offers services at Rs.1-1.5 lakh, with a facility of equated monthly instalments thrown in.
That demand has encouraged hair clinics to sprout.
Advanced Hair Studio, which is present in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad, plans to invest Rs.250 crore over the next three years to expand its footprint to 15 cities.
Rich Feel Health and Beauty Pvt. Ltd has
58 outlets across 27 cities today, and plans to ramp that up to 250
outlets over the next two years, with a capital expenditure of
Rs.50 lakh per clinic. A treatment would cost anywhere between
Rs.49,000 and
Rs.1.99 lakh.
And the competition has resulted in a flurry of ads by rival companies.
“If you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind,” says
Apoorva Shah,
the person behind Rich Feel Health, referring to the crowded market for
such treatments, which includes a multitude of fly-by-night operators.
“You need firepower for expansion, and in that sense, the private treaty
has worked well for us. We had a topline of
Rs.1.5 crore five years ago. Today, we have a topline of
Rs.60 crores.”
Shah’s
reference is to an arrangement with Brand Capital, a firm that is part
of the Times Group. In return for a stake in the company, Shah gets
advertising and promotion space in publications run by the group and
also claims to author a column on (what else) hair for the group. The
Times Group, which publishes The Times of India and The Economic Times, competes with HT Media Ltd, publisher of the Hindustan Times and Mint.
The
preferred method of advertising is the before-after one, says Marya,
with most companies preferring to use celebrities. “They are paid well,
so they don’t mind appearing in the ads,” he adds. Then, it’s not as if
they can hide the transformation in their appearance.
