Beiersdorf AG today shared record financial results for the fiscal year 2023.
Group sales reached €9.5bn, which were up by 10.8% on the previous year and its Consumer Business division saw double-digit sales increases for the second year in a row, reaching €7.8bn (up by 12.5% on an organic basis).
Within that division, the Nivea brand enjoyed a record-breaking year with €5.2bn in sales – up by 16.2% – and double-digit growth in all regions and categories.
Sales for Derma brands Eucerin and Aquaphor were up by 24%, which marked the third consecutive year of double-digit growth and Healthcare was up by 4.2%.
This growth was able to offset poor results for its prestige brands La Prairie, which was down by 15.4%, and Chantecaille, which was down by 18.4%, in a tale that echoes the fate other similar high-priced heritage brands like Estée Lauder Companies’ MAC and Estée Lauder.
Fastest-growing beauty company in the world
Beiersdorf CEO Vincent Warnery commented that the business was “the fastest-growing beauty company in the world in 2023” and highlighted that Nivea’s strong growth and record sales were down to: “the strategic recalibration of Nivea’s operating model toward a more globalised and digital approach.”
Warnery said that the company’s success made it confident in its “vision to become the best skin care company in the world, a vision that requires continuous progress.”
The CEO also shared that in 2023, Beiersdorf had made “substantial strategic investments in our digital and physical infrastructure, our innovative strength, our sustainability progress, and in our people” and that he believed that these steps will “ensure that we can deliver continued strong growth in the future.”
E-commerce sales up
Beiersdorf said that the “balance between volume and pricing” and “efficient cost-management” had been crucial to the success of its Consumer Business segment.
It also highlighted that all regions and categories contributed to this result with double-digit growth.
In the Latin America region, the group saw overall sales up by 25.6%, which has resulted in an expanded EBIT margin.
Meanwhile, sales on its e-commerce business had also grown grew by 19%, outperforming the market in 2023.
Drilling down to its flagship brands, for Nivea, the Face Care category was a big growth driver, with sales up by 18% year-on-year, and its Luminous series outperforming the market.
For the derma brands Eucerin and Aquaphor, Sun Care has been a winner. It said that these brands also benefited from continued expansion of its e-commerce business, popularity of products that feature the ingredient Thiamidol, and increased success in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.
In the US market, it noted that Aquaphor had “delivered its best performance to date in 2023 in terms of organic and nominal sales.”
“Normalising inventory levels” for La Prairie and Chantecaille
Beiersdorf believed that sales had declined for its high-end, luxury brands La Prairie and Chantecaille due to “difficult markets in travel retail business and in mainland China in 2023.”
The business said 2023 was “a transition year to clean up stocks and normalise inventory levels for both brands.” It is now hopeful that La Prairie and Chantecaille will salvage back growth in 2024 through "healthy stock levels, product innovations, enhanced social commerce set-up and the expansion of the travel-retail business.”
Huge technological and sustainability investment in 2023
In a bid to become ‘future-ready’, Beiersdorf also revealed that it had invested significantly in 2023.
It had built a new €300m site in Germany, opened a €250m headquarters in its founding city of Hamburg, and has been expanding and modernising plants in Poland and Mexico.
The business also shared that it had put a high focus on sustainability for the future. Last year it received the Triple-A rating from non-profit CDP and was ranked as one of only 10 companies in the world to "lead the sustainability transformation". By 2045, it aims to reach net zero and reduce its emissions along the entire value chain by 90%.
