L’Occitane, the prestige French natural beauty company, boasted a sales surge of 6.3 per cent for its Q3 2020.

Revenues rose to US$639.6 million for the quarter, taking nine-month sales to US$1.44 billion.

The UK delivered the fastest growth through an upsurge in sales of the Elemis professional skincare brand, acquired by L’Occitane in early 2019 for US$900 million.

China was also a hotspot with sales soaring 32.4 per cent in Q3.

The multinational was forced to close 75 per cent of its global store network during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Q4 sales dropped by only 0.7 per cent (1.6% constant) to 338 million euros (AUD$559.64 million). A solid result that will still allow FY2020 to achieve 15.2 per cent sales growth for the full year.

L’Occitane also enjoys strong sales in travel retail and B2B channels, which were also heavily affected during the coronavirus crisis.

But the company credits e-commerce, marketplaces, web partners and TV channels, including TVSN in Australia,  with delivering “significant growth” over the fourth quarter to compensate for a fall in bricks-and-mortar sales.

Reinold Geiger, chairman and CEO, says it is too early to gauge the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the company is taking major steps to minimise the blow.

“This includes optimising our cost structure while ensuring that we maintain the capacity to resume growth as strongly as possible when the conditions allow.”

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