India Loves Popcorn. So Why Has No Brand Won the Market?

On a Saturday evening in a multiplex, popcorn feels inevitable. The smell drifts down the corridor. Buckets are stacked behind the counter. Cheese, caramel, butter—each upgrade costs a little more than the last. For cinema operators, popcorn is not a snack so much as a strategy. It pays for the screen. 

Outside the theatre, the picture changes. 

Despite years of brand-building, new flavours, and premium packaged variants, popcorn has struggled to become an everyday snack in Indian homes. It is widely available—across supermarkets, e-commerce platforms and quick-commerce apps—but it is rarely habitual. When people reach for something during a chai break, they still pick bhujia or biscuits. 

The question is not whether popcorn sells. It does. The question is why it sells the way it does. 

An occasion, not a habit 

Popcorn’s roots in India lie outside the home. Long before multiplexes, it was sold at melas and fairs. A vendor would heat sand over a coal stove and toss kernels until they burst open. It was eaten hot, on the spot, and discarded when it went cold. 

That ritual later moved into cinema halls. As multiplex culture took hold in the late 1990s, popcorn found a new anchor. The snack became part of the movie-going experience. Cinemas leaned into it. Flavours multiplied. Prices rose. Margins expanded. 

This journey shaped how consumers think about popcorn. It is coded as an occasion snack—something eaten while out with friends, on a date, or during a movie. It is not what one eats absent-mindedly at home. 

“Perception plays a decisive role in product penetration. In India, popcorn has long carried a cosmopolitan image. It began as a foreign, global snack and later became firmly associated with the cinema experience,” says Falguni Vasvada, professor at MICA. Over time, she believes, it turned into a ‘movie snack’—something consumed as an indulgence, often in the form of a large bucket at a multiplex. 

Once that association set in, popcorn drifted further from everyday life. “While it is eaten in a minority of households, it has not meaningfully penetrated Indian homes,” Vasvada asserts. 

Popcorn has always been more of an outside, occasion-led product. “Its origins go back to melas, where it was freshly made and eaten on the spot,” says Ashita Agarwal, professor of marketing at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research. Over time, that ritual shifted to movie theatres, especially as multiplex culture took off. For cinemas, popcorn also became a high-margin product, with flavours like cheese and caramel making it feel more premium. 

Because of this journey—from melas to movies—popcorn became culturally coded as an occasion snack. “It doesn’t naturally fit into everyday at-home moments like a chai break, where people are more likely to reach for bhujia or biscuits,” Agarwal adds. 

In contrast, India’s dominant snack categories are routine foods. Namkeen and biscuits fill jars, sit next to kettles, and are eaten without planning. Popcorn requires one. 

Vasvada points to a deeper reason why displacement is difficult. India’s everyday snacking is intensely regional. “Every region has its own repertoire of familiar, homemade snacks—gathia, sev, puri, shakkarpara in parts of the west; murukus and similar varieties in the south,” she says. These are deeply embedded in daily life, making it difficult for a relatively neutral product like popcorn to replace them. 

From cinema counters to supermarket shelves 

At-home popcorn consumption does exist, but it follows the same logic. People buy it for movie nights, get-togethers, or when guests come over. “At-home consumption is growing, but slowly, and largely for similar occasions—movie nights, get-togethers, or when friends are over,” Agarwal says. 

There is also a sensory and convenience problem. Popcorn is at its best when it is hot and fresh. It loses texture quickly. Cold popcorn is rarely satisfying. This makes it different from chips or biscuits, which are engineered to taste the same hours later. 

Packaged popcorn tries to bridge this gap, while microwave popcorn depends on an appliance that is still not widespread in Indian kitchens. Making popcorn on a stove is possible, but it adds friction. As a result, popcorn occupies an awkward middle ground—less effortless than packaged snacks, and less rewarding than freshly made food. 

Industry estimates suggest the Indian popcorn market reached about $90 million in 2025, with projections running much higher over the next decade. Much of that growth, however, is still expected to come from leisure consumption and social occasions. 

The sale of 4700BC by PVR INOX to Marico illustrates this clearly. PVR INOX sold its entire stake in Zea Maize Private Limited, the maker of 4700BC, for ₹226.8 crore in January 2026. While the brand moved from cinema counters to supermarket shelves, popcorn alone did not scale fast enough. It expanded into chips, makhana and corn nuts, repositioning itself as a premium snacking company. 

“India already has its own regional popcorn variants—sold loose or in small sachets, often priced at ₹10 or less,” Vasvada explains. A ₹10 packet of local popcorn is unlikely to cede space to a ₹499 or ₹1,000 premium offering. The two operate in different mental and economic categories. 

Popcorn sells where it aligns with existing behaviour. It struggles where it asks consumers to change routines. Until that changes, popcorn will remain what it has always been in India: a snack tied to fun, to going out, to watching something together—profitable in the right setting, popular in the right moment, but still waiting for a permanent place on the kitchen shelf.