As the BRIC markets mature, will the next focus be MINT?

According to former Goldman Sachs chairman and economist Jim O’Neill, who identified the BRICs as Brazil, Russia, India and China back in 2001, market observers should prepare to adjust their focus for high growth expectations to a number of rising stars.

O’Neill believes that new focus is likely to fall on the MINT countries – Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey – markets where he believes the conditions are now right to demonstrate big economic growth in the future.

Aside from increasing political stability, O’Neill believes that all of these countries demonstrate growing younger populations that are likely to become the consumer market of tomorrow, strategic geographical placement for global trade paths, and, with the exception of Turkey, they are all commodity producers, too.

MINTs look 'fresher' than the BRICs​

“A friend who has followed the Bric story noted sardonically that they are probably "fresher" than the Brics,”​ said O’Neill in an interview with the BBC.

“What they really share beyond having a lot of people, is that at least for the next 20 years, they have really good "inner" demographics - they are all going to see a rise in the number of people eligible to work relative to those not working.”​

O’Neill believes that if the MINT countries “get their act together” they could match the double-digit growth experienced in China’s economy between the years 2003 and 2008.

Will this predicted economic growth translate into cosmetics spend?​

Exactly how this will translate into growth for the cosmetics and personal care markets in each of the MINT markets is yet to be seen as each country has an entirely different retail landscape, and very different cosmetic and personal care markets.

However, with China's cosmetics market now projected to grow from virtually nothing a few decades ago to become the world’s biggest by the year 2018, if any of the MINT markets can come in any way close to matching this performance the dividends are likely to be high for companies making the right moves at the right time.

So far early signs of growth for the industry have been detected in various market research data, suggesting that the MINT markets are already off to a good start.

Big growth from a small base already looks promising in Indonesia​

In particular, data has successively pointed to the fact that Indonesia, with a population close to 240 million people, is set to be a particularly strong force in the cosmetics and personal care landscape.

This was underlined by recent data from Neilsen, showing that during 2013 spending on cosmetics increased by 27.5% to Rp82bn ($6.8bn), while in urban areas the spend increased by 9.4% to Rp606bn.

Although this growth is being recorded from a small base, continued momentum of this scale in the future is likely to make Indonesia and any of the three other three markets looking like increasingly promising prospects for cosmetic and personal care players..