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Unilever PLC
Unilever makes and sells everyday consumer products — soaps, shampoos, cleaning supplies, food and ice cream — to shoppers around the world.
Unilever is a giant maker of everyday products that fill your bathroom, your kitchen, and your freezer. It sells soap, shampoo, deodorant, laundry detergent, cleaning spray, tea, mayonnaise, and ice cream — brands like Dove, Knorr, Hellmann's, Persil, and Ben & Jerry's. You probably don't think about the company much, but you touch its stuff almost every day.
The business is split into five parts: beauty and wellbeing, personal care, home care, foods, and ice cream. Unilever sells to ordinary shoppers in dozens of countries, and it makes money by selling huge volumes of cheap products at small profits per item. Its real power is distribution: getting its brands onto shelves in supermarkets, corner shops, and online stores almost everywhere on Earth. That reach is why a small brand owner can't easily compete — Unilever's trucks and salespeople are already in place. In recent years, Unilever has been reshaping itself. It sold its tea business (the Ekaterra unit, home to brands like Lipton) and announced plans to spin off its ice cream division, which includes big names like Ben & Jerry's and Magnum, into a separate company. The logic: ice cream behaves differently from shampoo — it needs freezers, seasonal timing, and a different kind of sales push — so separating it lets each business focus. That spin-off is a major move because ice cream has been one of Unilever's most distinctive and profitable categories.
Unilever's biggest headache is growth. Big consumer companies have struggled as shoppers switch to cheaper store brands or smaller upstart brands, and as retailers like Walmart and discount chains squeeze prices. Unilever also faces fierce competition from rivals like Procter & Gamble and Nestlé. Its response has been to focus on its strongest brands, cut costs, and try to grow in emerging markets where more people are entering the middle class and buying branded products for the first time. When it has spare cash, Unilever pays a steady dividend and buys back shares — a sign it sees itself as a mature, cash-generating machine rather than a fast grower.
Saved answer · last researched 14 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
Unilever's CEO says India alone brings in 16% of the company's revenue
- 16% Revenue from India
- 84% Revenue from everywhere else
Emerging markets make up 62% of Unilever's revenue, and India is the single biggest piece at about 16%. In a country where it sells roughly 60 packs of soap, shampoo or tea for every person each year, Hindustan Unilever holds 55% of haircare and near 50% of laundry. That grip gives Unilever cash and a playbook it now wants to copy in Africa and Vietnam. Source: The Economic Times, data from 2026
Timeline
Jurgens Family Moves to Oss
The Jurgens family were carpenters who sold the butter they got paid in. When that butter business turned out to be very profitable, they moved to Oss in the Netherlands in 1860 to build it up properly.
Lever Brothers and Sunlight Soap
William Hesketh Lever and his brother James started a soap works in Warrington. Lever teamed up with a chemist named William Hough Watson, who figured out how to make soap from vegetable oils instead of the usual animal fats, and the brand they sold was Sunlight Soap.
Unilever Is Born
In 1930, Margarine Unie and Lever Brothers joined together to create Unilever, a combination The Economist called one of the biggest industrial mergers in European history. That same year, Procter & Gamble entered the UK market, and the rivalry that started then would shape both companies for decades.
Birds Eye Comes to Britain
Unilever bought a majority stake in Frosted Foods and with it the UK rights to deep-freezing, which gave it the Birds Eye brand in Britain. That deal planted the seed for a whole new frozen food business.
Bestfoods and Ben & Jerry's
Unilever bought Bestfoods, the company behind Hellmann's mayonnaise and Knorr soups and stock cubes, in what was then the second-largest cash deal in history. It also picked up Ben & Jerry's that same year.
Kraft Heinz Makes a Move
Kraft Heinz came at Unilever with a huge takeover approach, and CEO Paul Polman fought it off. After that scare, Unilever bought back shares, pushed itself to earn better margins and sped up its restructuring.
One Company, One Parent
Unilever collapsed its old Anglo-Dutch dual structure into a single parent company, Unilever PLC, based in London. That ended a two-headed setup that had been in place since 1929.
The Failed GSK Bid
Unilever made a big bid for GSK's consumer healthcare business, and it did not work. GSK instead spun that business off as its own company, Haleon.
Fernandez Takes Over
Fernando Fernandez became CEO in March 2025 with a mandate to speed things up. Under him, Unilever completed the separation of its ice cream business, sending Magnum off as an independent company, and he is now focused on a smaller set of high-growth brands in beauty, wellbeing and personal care.
Food Business Merges with McCormick
Unilever agreed to merge its food business with McCormick, the spice maker, in what would be the second-largest food deal in history and create a company worth roughly $65 billion. Unilever keeps a small stake in the combined business, and the move closes the book on its food era, completing its shift toward beauty, personal care and home care.