With sales amounting to €556 million, the division has been developed to cater to the skin and hair care categories, together with decorative cosmetics and sunscreen preparations. Its burgeoning active ingredients for the cosmetics and toiletries category includes ceramides, vitamins, enzymes and a number of anti-inflammatory substances.
"The product line strategy of Degussa is characterised by wide coverage of the active ingredients market and innovative product concepts, which steer clear of commodities," said Frost & Sullivan programme manager Gordon McManus. "Several novel products in its portfolio along with a strong research and customer service have enabled the company to support its clients with product formulation and claim support."
Frost and Sullivan says that sophisticated market knowledge together with research strengths has underpinned Degussa's complete portfolio covering hair care, skin care, sun care, decorative cosmetics and toiletries together with its operations devoted to the cleansing products cateogory.
"Degussa has been able to demonstrate a high degree of responsiveness to market needs," commented McManus. "Moreover, the company follows an effective strategy of identifying multiple applications of its existing products, thereby ensuring a sustained demand for those offerings."
Degussa has made great advances in its active ingredients category in recent years. More specifically this has seen the development of various derivatives of ceramides that have been tailored for applications in moisturisers, skin whitening, skin renewal and also as emollients.
Meanwhile Creatine has been developed for applications in skin care and hair care, while the company offers various blends and derivatives of phytospingosine, which can render benefits such as anti-acne, anti-age spots and skin soothing.
The Frost & Sullivan Product Line Strategy Award recognizes the efforts of companies in a variety of fields that present a unique and successful line of products and services to specific industries. To select the award recipients a team of analysts tracks all end-user requirements and market dynamics within the industry and then assesses them according to industry criteria.
This year the overall winner for the award was Telogy, a provider of measurement instrumentation for a variety of end-users.