On March 15, the National Bureau of Statistics in China released data showing that from January to February 2021, China total retail sales of consumer goods reached 6973.7 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 33.8% and an increase of 6.4% over the first two months of 2019.
Among the data, the sales of cosmetics reached 55.8 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 40.7%, outperforming the overall growth in the total retail sales of consumer goods. From January to February 2019, the retail sales data was 45.1 billion RMB, compared with an increase of 23.7% in the same period this year.
Statistics show that from January to February, the national online retail sales reached 1,758.7 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 32.5%. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods was 1441.2 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 30.6%, accounting for 20.7% of the total retail sales of consumer goods; among the online retail sales of physical goods, food, clothing, and consumer goods increased by 41.6%, respectively. 44.3% and 25.1%.
As the Spring Festival drives consumption, online beauty retail continues growing fast. According to data from the Alibaba platform, in January this year, the total GMV of skin care and makeup was 18.708 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 40.4%. Among them, skin care Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) increased by 52.84% to 12.646 billion RMB, makeup GMV increased by 20.02% to 6.062 billion RMB, and skin care GMV was 2.08 times that of makeup.
In February, the total GMV of cosmetics and skin care online sale was 14.739 billion RMB, an increase of 11.31% year-on-year and a decrease of 29.09% from the previous month. Among them, skin care GMV reached 9.872 billion RMB, 2.02 times that of makeup GMV.
In terms of domestic brands, in January this year, Huaxizi and Perfect Diary had sales of 285 million RMB and 250 million RMB on the Ali platform respectively. In February, the sales of the two diverged. In the same month, Huaxizi was the No. 1 domestic brand in sales, and its GMV was 288 million RMB, followed by Perfect Diary 223 million RMB.
In terms of international brands, L’Oréal Group is still on the Top. In February, Lancome’s GMV was 269 million RMB, followed by L’Oréal Paris with 227 million RMB, and Estee Lauder ranked third with 226 million RMB in GMV.
