THE WHAT? L’Oréal has reported its results for the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The French beauty giant saw sales significantly outperform the market, growing 10.2 percent like-for-like to reach €7.61 billion.

THE DETAILS All geographic zones, save Western Europe, saw growth with North America performing well both on and offline and Asia Pacific returning to the extremely dynamic pre-pandemic growth rates, driven most notably by a fast-growing mainland China. E-commerce now accounts for 26.8 percent of sales, and recorded yoy growth of 47.2 percent for the first three months of the financial year.

In terms of sector, three of the French beauty giant’s divisions, Professional Products, Active Cosmetics and L’Oreal Luxe posted double-digit growth while Consumer Products stayed stable, hampered by weakened demand for the make-up category, which remains lackluster.

THE WHY? Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of L’Oréal, commented, “In spite of the health crisis and the ongoing associated measures in some countries, particularly in Western Europe, the beauty market continues to recover. Against this backdrop, L’Oréal has started the year with very strong growth at 10.2 percent like-for-like in the first quarter, significantly outperforming the market. The Group is therefore continuing its acceleration, initiated in the third quarter of 2020, and is increasing by 5.0 percent like-for-like compared to the first quarter of 2019.

In an environment that is improving progressively due to the vaccination programmes, and thanks to the commitment and determination of the teams all over the world, L’Oréal is in a fighting spirit mode, focused on product launches and investments in growth drivers to support growth of its brands. We are therefore confident in our ability to outperform the market and achieve a year of growth in both sales and profits.”