L’Oréal On Track to Outpace Beauty Market in 2020

PARIS — L’Oréal’s Jean Paul Agon said that assuming the coronavirus follows a similar trajectory to SARS and MERS, it “will have a temporary impact on the beauty market in the region and, therefore, on our business in China and travel retail in Asia, even it it’s too early to assess it.” The world’s largest beauty company’s chairman and chief executive officer was addressing financial analysts and journalists during a conference on Friday at company headquarters in the Paris suburb of Clichy. The morning meeting took place hours after L’Oréal on Thursday evening published its results. As reported, the company’s fourth-quarter sales reached 7.88 billion euros, a 9.6 percent rise on a like-for-like basis, exceeding consensus estimates of 7.3 percent. For 2019, L’Oréal registered sales of 29.87 billion euros, up 8 percent on a like-for-like basis, the group’s best annual gain since 2007. Agon said L’Oréal is confident in its capacity to again outperform the beauty market and achieve another year of sales and profit increases in 2020. Nicolas Hieronimus, L’Oréal deputy ceo, described the group’s four growth engines as: power brands, category agility, innovation and an “o-plus-o” (or “online-plus-offline”) strategy. L’Oréal’s numbers were well-received Friday, as the group’s stock closed up 1.1 percent to 270.70

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