On March 29, 2021, L’Oréal China held the 2020/2021 development strategy annual communication meeting in Shanghai “BEAUTY HUGEVOLUTION,”. L’Oréal China announced its results of 2020 and the decision to set Shanghai as the headquarters of L’Oréal’s North Asia.
2020 is the year of the outbreak of COVID 19, beauty company in worldwide may suffer the same consequences that losing sales or breakdown of business in a couple of months. However, L’Oréal China breaks the trends and drives the total sales up to 27% growth.
Fabrice Megarbane, the CEO of L’Oréal’s North Asia said in his speech, L’Oreal Group decided to establish an inclusive mainland China, China Taiwan, Hong Kong China, Korea, Japan’s new North Asia regional headquarters in Shanghai. He believes that North Asia will strengthen the leading power of the beauty golden triangle, which will enable L’Oréal to achieve greater success and victory in China and accelerate China’s becoming the world’s largest market.
China becomes the largest market of 7 leading brands
Fabrice said that China has become the largest market in the world for the seven brands: L’Oréal Paris and SkinCeuticals, Lancome, Helena, Kiehl’s, YSL, and KERASTASE.
From the perspective of the four major departments of L’Oréal China, the active health cosmetics department performed the best. SkinCeuticals has long occupied the No. 1 sale of high-end professional skincare brand on Tmall; Vichy, as a functional skincare brand, revitalizes the pharmacy channel, achieving 3.5 times growth in 2020, reaching the largest growth rate in the past ten years; CeraVe is also developing rapidly, achieving around three-times increase. In addition, the two new brands launched by the L’Oréal Group in the Chinese market has also achieved good results: Urban Decay has become the second-largest international high-end cosmetics brand on Tmall Global, and Maison Margiela perfume has become the first brand of Tmall perfume trend list.
E-commerce plays the Major Role of Growth
In 2020, L’Oréal China’s online sales accounted for 60% of the growth, and the sales increased by 56% compared to 2019. Specifically, these increases mainly come from three aspects: online services, live streaming channels, and social e-commerce.
In 2020, more than 6,000 online beauty consultants in L’Oréal China has reached Up to 20 million consumers by using group chats (WeChat), live streaming online services, and online makeup try services.
“Live streaming has become a new traffic creator,” Fabrice revealed that L’Oréal China has more than 100 full-time online hosts every day. During Double 11 in 2020, 17 brands were broadcasting live.
Meanwhile, Social e-commerce has also become a new platform. L’Oréal China’s social e-commerce turnover has doubled year-on-year in 2019. A total of 19 mini-program stores on WeChat have been launched. For example, WeChat sales have become the main source of Vichy’s performance.
The 28th Brands
In order to meet the ever-changing and refined needs of consumers, L’Oréal China will officially introduce a new cosmetics and skincare brand: IT COSMETICS that has obtained clinical professional certification and is specially designed for problem skins into the Chinese market. This is the 28th brand that L’Oréal China has introduced to the Chinese mainland market.
