Financial focus: L’Occitane, Hourglass, HUL in our beauty business update

L’Occtiane en Provence sales dip attributed to COVID-19 challenges in China, Japan​​

Hong Kong-listed L’Occitane International’s flagship brand recorded a sales dip of 0.9% in the nine months ending December 2022 due to challenges related to COVID-19 in China and Japan.

It highlighted that China saw a low-teens per cent decline at constant rates in Q3. Excluding China, APAC grew by 7.0% at constant rates over the nine months.

However, the company said this slump was temporary and expected its performance to improve moving forward.

Hourglass makeup sales grows 109% in Korea after mask mandate lifts​​

Hourglass Cosmetics has experienced a year-on-year growth of 109% in South Korea after it scrapped its face mask mandate for most indoor public places.

In January, Hourglass sales increased by 109% year on year (YoY) just as local authorities lifted its mask mandate for the majority of indoor public places on January 30.

The impact on makeup sales was immediate, with Hourglass sales jumping by 146% from January 28 to Feb 1.

Teaology Asia business expected to grow and surpass Europe within ‘couple of years’ – CEO​​

Italian beauty brand Teaology believes its business in Asia could surpass Europe in just a “couple of years” in line with the company’s five-year plan to expand its global footprint.

The company recently relaunched its campaign to expand in Asia after a two-year hiatus triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, Teaology has its eye on more Asian markets, including Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

“In our plans, Asia will have to be very quickly in a couple of years be bigger than Europe. In the five-year plan it should be the first area for Teaology,” ​said CEO Paolo Bevegni.

Sa Sa HK’s sales improve with consumer sentiment boost – CEO​​

Sa Sa’s CEO says the easing of social distancing measures in Hong Kong has improved consumer sentiment and consequently improved sales despite now having fewer storefronts.

Same-store sales in Hong Kong improved by 9.3% while online sales increased by 19.1% year-on-year.

Overall, sales recorded growth of 3.6% despite the retailer having seven fewer storefronts over the past year.

This coincided with the easing of social distancing measures in the market.

HUL’s beauty and personal care innovations offset slump of winter skin care​​

Unilever subsidiary Hindustan Unilever (HUL) says that its beauty and personal care business has grown thanks to new product launches, which helped to mitigate the slump of its winter skin care line-up.

 India recorded its warmest December in 122 years. This affected the sales of winter skin care portfolio, led primarily by Vaseline.

“Vaseline is a big brand that sells in winter, where the sales definitely shoot up. That was impacted because the winter was very slow in coming in December,”​ said CEO Sanjiv Mehta.