L’Oreal posts slower growth in China

L’OREAL, the world’s largest cosmetics group, said growth in China slowed to 7.7 percent last year from that of 10.2 percent in 2013, as consumption growth slowed in China and globally.

The French company’s total sales in China were 14.3 billion yuan (US$2.28 billion) last year, as the country remained its the third-largest market.

Globally, like-for-like sales was up 3.7 percent under fixed exchange rate to 22.5 billion euros.

“Moderate growth in the fast moving consumer goods sector is becoming a normal situation under China’s new economic scenario,” said Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China.

“Beauty market growth is boosted by trading up from a more sophisticated group of consumers, and we’ve seen high-end product lines growing at a much faster pace than mass market products,” he added.

Alexis Perakis-Valat, L’Oreal Group Executive vice president for Asia Pacific and CEO of L’Oreal China, said future growth would come from more tailor-made products for local consumers and geographical expansion into lower tier cities, especially for luxury product division.