L'Oreal's China sales growth hits multi-year high

L'Oreal reported its fastest sales growth in China in more than a decade last year as personal-care and beauty products gained momentum. 

L'Oreal's China sales surged 35 percent in 2019, the fastest growth in 15 years, with spending boosts for major brands such as Lancôme, Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani and Kiehl's.  

"Despite a short-term impact on retail foot traffic amid preventative measures during the epidemic, we expect market demand to rebound as it did in previous situations and we're confident to achieve better results with a growth pace above the industry average," said Fabrice Megarbane, CEO of L'Oreal China. 

China's e-commerce sales accounted for around 50 percent of overall sales. 

Globally, L'Oreal's digital channel sales surged 52.4 percent and accounted for 15.6 percent of total income, as it's been actively leveraging online platforms and various shopping festivals to drive spending.  

The French company reported like-for-like sales adding 8 percent to 29.87 billion euros (US$33.4 billion), while profit went up 12.7 percent to 5.54 billion euros. 

"Assuming that this epidemic follows a similar pattern, we are confident in our capacity this year again to outperform the beauty market and achieve another year of growth in both sales and profits," commented Jean-Paul Agon, chairman and CEO of L’Oréal Group. 

Personal-care and beauty products outperformed the consumer market last year, more than tripling the growth pace of overall consumer goods sales, according to an earlier report by Bain & Company and Kantar Worldpanel. Rising average selling prices contributed to gains in personal care, and shoppers are also showing a rising preference for imported brands and niche products.