Speaking to Reuters, the brand noted that its expansion plan will initially continue within Nigeria, where further store openings for MAC are planned, and will then turn its focus to Cote d’Ivoire, Botswana and Zambia later this year.
MAC and Clinique will be the brands making up the expansion into the three countries, as a rising middle class across the region means enthusiasm for affordable luxury is on the up.
Emerging markets
Sub-Saharan Africa is tipped to become the next big emerging market, according to Euromonitor International.
Beauty in the region is “relatively a smaller market in comparison to some of the other regional markets, but it’s been recording strong growth and it has not slowed down,” Oru Mohiuddin, senior beauty and personal care market analyst, recently confirmed to CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com.
Euromonitor says the region's total populace is set to exceed 1 billion by 2019, more than Europe and Australasia combined, and this is feeding through to improving living standards and growing consumer expenditure.
"This is laying the foundations for an increasingly important consumer market and with it huge opportunities for companies with the right goods and services and an appropriate strategy," say the market researcher’s analysts.
Estée Lauder’s expansion plan confirms it is one beauty brand positioning itself to tap into this potentially golden opportunity.
Track record
The global beauty giant is no stranger to leveraging emerging markets: market analysts at Trefis recently highlighted that Estée Lauder’s capacity for investment into R&D and has enabled it to win out in strongly growing regions like Asia Pacific.
“Being a prestige beauty product manufacturer, Estée Lauder has faced limited competition from either domestic or international mass-market brands, adding to its appeal to the emerging market consumer,” the analysts confirm.
L’Oreal is another major brand shifting its focus onto Sub-Saharan Africa, already boasting a presence in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and last year acquiring Interconsumer Products Ltd (ICP), the largest local manufacturer of beauty products in Kenya.