United Spirits Limited, the India subsidiary of London-based Diageo, has launched Smirnoff Ice in India, the first time the vodka brand has entered the ready-to-drink segment in the country, Mint reported on Thursday. Ready-to-drink products are pre-mixed alcoholic beverages sold in a can or bottle.
The company has two versions: Smirnoff Ice, at 4% alcohol by volume, and Smirnoff Ice Max, at 8%. Both come in Jamun, Cranberry and Citrus flavors. Sales have started in Goa, in western India, along with Bengaluru, in southern India, and Mumbai, in western India. United Spirits plans to add other markets ahead of the festive season.
Smirnoff is already growing in India. Mint reported that the brand’s net sales value reached nearly ₹250 crore ($26 million at current exchange rates) in the quarter ending June 2026, the first of the fiscal year ending March 2027. It recorded ₹350 crore ($36 million at current exchange rates) in the whole fiscal year ending March 2026. Net sales value is a liquor company’s revenue after discounts, returns and duties. India is now the vodka brand’s fifth largest market. Across its prestige and above business, net sales value rose 10% to ₹2,478 crore ($256 million at current exchange rates) in the April to June quarter.
Praveen Someshwar, the company’s managing director and chief executive officer, said on the first-quarter earnings call at the end of July that “Smirnoff is picking up and therefore that’s beefing up that growth algorithm,” according to Mint.
A small category that grows faster than the world. Mint cited data from the drinks consultancy IWSR showing that ready-to-drink sales in India crossed $200 million in 2025, up 11% from a year earlier. The market grew at a compound annual rate of 6% from 2022 to 2025, against 3% worldwide. India sold 5.3 million nine-liter cases in 2025, compared with 410 million cases of beer. In the United States, the largest ready-to-drink market, with 40% of global volumes, volumes fell 1% in 2025.
Taste in India also differs from taste in mature markets. Lower-alcohol products such as hard seltzers have driven growth in several developed markets, but Mint reported that consumers in India prefer strong, flavor-led drinks. Some popular ready-to-drink products there contain 15% alcohol by volume, against 3% to 4% for many global products. That explains why United Spirits is launching two strengths.
Ruchira Jaitly, the company’s chief marketing officer, told Mint that younger drinkers are not simply drinking less. “I do not think that the narrative is as simple as people are drinking less. It’s more that people are choosing from a wider repertoire,” she said. She said the goal is to make Smirnoff relevant to more occasions, not to get current Smirnoff drinkers to drink more of it. United Spirits did not give a sales target for Smirnoff Ice, and Jaitly said the early response in Goa had been “very good.”
Why this matters. For a global drinks company, India is a place to adapt a product rather than copy a formula. Diageo is bringing a familiar brand to a category that is small but growing quickly, and it is setting alcohol strength by local taste. Executives weighing consumer products for India can read the launch as a test of how far a global brand can stretch into new formats where its name is already established.
