L’Oreal Global Flagship Store is seen on Nanjing Road 8. May 2021 in Shanghai in China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
The world’s largest beauty group L’Oreal He said on Friday that he plans to become less dependent on the Chinese consumer for growth, instead of targeting growing opportunities in the US market.
“We see now as a country of opportunity,” said the director Nicolas Hieronimus during the presentation of earnings after the company was published The results of the fourth quarter Thursday.
Speaking during the Q&A session, Hieronimus described China as a “great unknown” after the company reported on a continuous decline in three -month northern Asia sales in the middle of a “challenging” Chinese ecosystem.
Northern Asia sales reduced 3.6% similar to the fourth quarter, a steep drop of 2.4% of contraction forecasts in the consensus assessment cited by the bank.
Through 2024, L’Oreal market growth has decreased about 4%, while the retail travel in Asia has fallen around 10%, the data that the company shared on Friday shows. Beauty Group added that China now makes up 17% of total sales, which is a significant reduction in recent years.
“The big unknown is China,” Hieronimus continued. “In our own calculations, we counted on our own calculation for cinema. We think that passenger retail retail will remain difficult and from there I can only come in good surprises.”
The company, whose brands include Lancôme, Maybelline and Kiehl’s, is struggling with a weaker consumer demand compared to the recent quarter, especially in the key Chinese market, which also scored the luxury firms of top-notch.
It comes as sales in the fourth quarter has increased in all regions at EUR 11.08 billion ($ 11.49 billion), which is 2.5% more for a similar basis and only shyly 11.1 billion euros estimated by analysts estimated in the LSEG poll -and.
The US sales increased 1.4% in a similar way, which is a drop of 5.2% growth in the previous quarter and the weakest among all other regions.
Still, he said to Hierronamos that he was optimistic about the possibilities in the US market, especially in the young and growing Latin and the multinsic population, which he said would lead to “various new needs of beauty.”
He also pointed to the wealth of an American consumer, which he said he would “continue to trigger the growth of our luxury division.”
L’Oreal.
“Today, we are quite a bull in the US, sure of the emerging markets, stable in our stronghold in Europe and a big questionnaire in China,” he said.
Hieronimus has not been abolished to the implications of any new American policy over trade and immigration under the administration of President Donald Trump.
Responding to a separate question about the potential influence of American tariffs – what an economist would warn flame inflation And suppress consumer consumption and the USA on target markets like China – Hieronimus said there are “many unknowns” in the macroeconomic environment.
L’Oreal’s year-round sale increased by 5.1% to 43.48 billion euros compared to EUR 43.33.33, the company reported on Thursday.
The shares fell 4.5% on Friday as investors have digested the results, increasing the fall of more than 20% last year.
