Ulta Beauty, the largest speciality beauty chain in the US, has long been a springboard for Australian brands to enter the highly competitive American beauty market.
In late February, for example, Coco & Eve, which launched on Ulta.com in 2018, released its six SKU Sunny Honey tan range in 452 Ulta stores. It’s the brand’s first US bricks-and-mortar partnership. From March 19th, Lanolips Glossy Balm will also enter Ulta Beauty stores in addition to being available online.
A phenomenal strategic opportunity that keeps on improving. For the first time in its three-decade history, Ulta Beauty exceeded analysts’ expectations to reach full-year sales of US$10.2 billion in 2022 – an upsurge of 18.3 per cent.
Price increases did little to deter double-digit growth across all major categories, especially during the final holiday fourth quarter. Skincare sales were a high point with Ulta Beauty name-checking Drunk Elephant, The Ordinary and La Roche-Posay among its fastest-growing brands.
Makeup sales continued their strong resurgence through 2022 with double digit growth across the mass and prestige categories, led by Fenty Beauty, R.E.M Beauty and Dior.
Dave Kimbell, CEO of Ulta Beauty, tapped luxury beauty as an emerging opportunity and the company has beefed up its luxury offerings through brands such as Chanel, Hourglass, Dior, Tom Ford and Gucci.
The company’s partnership with Target continued to go from strength-to-strength with the launch of 254 more shop-in-shop openings in 2022.
For the first time in our 33 year history, Ulta Beauty’s annual revenue surpassed $10 billion, our annual net income exceeded $1 billion and we exceeded 40 million Ultamate rewards members, said Kimbell.
“These milestone achievements demonstrate the power of Ulta Beauty’s highly differentiated model, the health of the growing beauty category, and our winning culture and outstanding teams”.
For full-year 2023, Ulta Beauty expects net sales to reach a forecast range of US$10.95 billion to US$11.05 billion – a sales growth of between 4 to 5 per cent – and will also open 25 to 30 new stores.
Like Myer, Ulta Beauty also benefited from a much higher in-store foot traffic in 2022 compared to 2019 and 2021. In New York, for example, visitor numbers soared 45.6 per cent during the lead-up to Christmas.
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