The Switzerland-based giant said developing markets currently contribute 40 percent of its global sales.

"Our expectation is that by the end of the decade that (figure) will reach 50 percent," Nandu Nandkishore, Nestle zone director for Asia, Oceania, Africa and Middle East told AFP in New Delhi.

Nandkishore was in the country ahead of the opening of Nestle's first research and development centre in India, located in Manesar, a town close to Delhi.

Nestle's India operations currently contribute just a fraction of the company's global sales but Nandkishore said he was upbeat about the country's long-term potential.

As India, a nation of 1.2 billion people, becomes an increasingly urban society, domestic demand for processed foods will grow, he said.