Slight increase in a difficult economic environment
Sales growth of +0.3% at 4.37 billion euros
- At constant exchange rates*: -0.4%
- Like-for-like: -4.3%
Resilience in the Consumer Products and Active Cosmetics Divisions, and at The Body Shop
Strong impact of crisis on Luxury Products Division
Prospect of a gradual improvement in performance in the course of 2009
Commenting on the figures, Mr Jean-Paul Agon, Chief Executive Officer of L'Oréal, said:
“The quality of the innovations, the strength of our brands, the group’s balanced presence across the major global markets, and the acquisition of YSL Beauté have enabled us to achieve a very slight increase in sales in the first quarter.
As we had anticipated, performances across the divisions are extremely differentiated: Consumer Products, Active Cosmetics and The Body Shop are proving resilient. The Professional Products markets have continued to slow. As for the Luxury Products Division, its sales have felt the strong impact, particularly in Western Europe, of very large inventory adjustments by distributors, after a disappointing end-of-year holiday period. Meanwhile, Galderma is continuing to record a remarkable growth rate.
To weather this crisis and indeed emerge stronger than before, the group is implementing 5 main strategic thrusts: developing accessible innovation to broaden the consumer base, opening up new product categories, accelerating globalisation, ensuring sustained advertising and promotional investments, and lastly reducing costs.
Thanks to the quality of its fundamentals and the implementation of these 5 major strategic thrusts, the group should gradually improve its performances in the course of 2009.”
* based on constant translation rates: 2009 data at 2009 rates / 2008 data at 2009 rates.
