The French group signed its best growth of the last decade with a turnover of around 30 billion euros and an operating profit up 12.7%.
By Luxus Plus
Sales by the world leader in cosmetics jumped by almost 10% in the last quarter of 2019, and by 8% over the year, to almost 30 billion euros. This best vintage since 2007 closes the “prodigious decade”, as CEO Jean-Paul Agon describes it, which the group has just crossed. “The turnover and the result were multiplied by 2, the market capitalization by 3.5” underlines the director.
The second capitalization of the CAC 40 behind LVMH, L’Oréal is worth around 150 billion euros. They seem far away, the results published ten years ago, much less prodigious : struck by the 2008 crisis, L’Oréal had seen its sales fall by 1.1% in 2009, for an amount estimated at 17.5 billion €.
In detail, the company published a net profit of 3.75 billion euros, held back by exceptional events, including asset impairments, according to results released Thursday. Without these non-recurring items, net profit increased by more than 9% to 4.35 billion euros, with an operating margin reaching 18.6% of turnover.
Its annual sales totaled 29.8 billion euros, above the expectations of the consensus of analysts compiled by Factset. Over the last three months of the year, sales thus increased by 9.6%, equivalent to 7.8 billion euros. All divisions of the group saw their turnover increase over the whole year. Consumer products, its main division, reached € 12.7 billion (+ 3.3%).
By regions, growth remains boosted by Asia Pacific (+ 25.5% in one year) which becomes L’Oréal’s leading zone with nearly 10 billion euros in turnover, while Europe the West is slowing down with only 1.8% growth.
L’Oréal Luxe, the sector dedicated to high-end beauty products, with its Lancôme or Yves Saint Laurent brands, saw its sales jump by 13.8%, exceeding 11 billion euros, thanks in particular to launches very successful in perfumes. “Being the world number one in perfume is not an objective in itself, our ambition is above all to strengthen our presence in this sector”, explained Jean-Paul Agon in an interview.
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