Food
Chinese consumers are powering massive sales growth for beauty products giant L’Oreal in Asia Pacific.
During the first half of this year, like-for-like sales in the region soared 22 per cent and it is now on the brink of surpassing North America as L’Oreal’s second largest geographic region in sales, behind Europe.
“This strong growth is being boosted by Chinese consumers, as reflected in the growth in China and Hong Kong across all divisions, especially for premium brands,” said L’Oreal in a statement. “E-commerce and travel retail accelerated in the first half. Southern Asia is extremely dynamic, with market share gains particularly in India and Malaysia.”
Globally, L’Oreal achieved sales of €13.39 billion, with €3.54 coming from Asia, €3.56 billion from North America and €4.13 billion from Western Europe. Across all markets, like-for-like sales rose by 6.6 per cent. But in Western Europe, sales slipped 2 per cent in the second quarter and 0.8 per cent over the first half.
Chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Agon said the beauty market is becoming more premium.
“The good sales growth and the quality of the first-half results reinforce our confidence in our ability to once again outperform the cosmetics market in 2018, and to achieve significant like-for-like sales growth and an increase in our profitability.”
