L'Oréal’s half-year 2024 sales have topped €22bn despite ongoing challenges in the Chinese beauty market.
Sales rose by 7.5% in the first half of the year, with net profits also increasing by 8.8% to €3.65bn.
This was supported by a standout performance from the Maybelline-owner’s Dermatological Beauty division, which grew 16.4% on a like-for-like basis.
La Roche-Posay remained the luxury beauty giant’s top-performing skin care brand, with CeraVe also “significantly” outperforming the global market during H1.
The strong demand for skin care helped to offset difficulties in North Asia, which saw sales decrease by 3.1%.
Operating conditions in the Chinese beauty market remain challenging and have been exacerbated by “lasting” low consumer confidence in the country’s mainland.
Poor travel retail sales also impacted sales growth in the first half of the year, but L'Oréal said momentum for the category has seen signs of improvement.
Japan grew by double-digits, however, and has benefited from the return of tourism in 2023.
“Our continued strong momentum in emerging markets, Europe and North America allowed us to more than offset the depressed beauty market in mainland China and the unfavourable comparative in travel retail,” Nicolas Hieronimus, CEO of L'Oréal.
“In this context, I am particularly pleased to see the acceleration of L’Oréal Luxe, the dynamism of Consumer Products and the continued share gains of Dermatological Beauty and Professional Products.”
European sales were up 12.2%, led by bumper make-up and skin sales across Germany, Spain, the UK and Ireland.
L'Oréal’s Consumer Products arms saw particular gains in Europe, with the category up 8.3%.
Make-up sales in emerging markets including Brazil, Mexico and India also bolstered the division’s gains.
This was driven by the L’Oréal Paris Panorama mascara, NYX Professional’s Makeup Duck Plump lip gloss, and Maybelline’s New York’s Sunkisser blush.
“In an environment that continues to be marked by economic and geopolitical tensions, we remain optimistic about the outlook for the beauty market and confident that our innovation power and the robustness of our multi-polar model will allow us to keep outperforming it and to achieve another year of growth in sales and profit,” added Hieronimus.
