L'Oreal China sales revenue up 7.7% in 2014

L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics group, saw its sales revenue in China rise 7.7 percent year-on-year in 2014 to reach 14.3 billion yuan ($2.3 billion), according to the company's annual financial report released on Tuesday.

It is the 18th consecutive year that L'Oreal has achieved steady growth in China. Contributing around 8 percent to the group's annual sales revenue, China has become the third-largest market for L'Oreal, next to the United States and France.

L'Oreal completed the acquisition of the Chinese domestic mask brand MAGIC in April last year. According to Alexis Perakis-Valat, chief executive officer of L'Oreal China, MAGIC is the reference of the Chinese mask industry. Faced with the highly competitive Chinese cosmetics market, the addition of MAGIC has not only made the brand portfolio even richer and more balanced, but also helped to attract millions of new consumers in China, he said.

In 2014, the growth rate of men's care products under L'Oreal was three times that of the average market growth rate in China. It will introduce a new series of men's care products in May this year.

This year also marks the 10th anniversary of L'Oreal's research and innovation center in China. Over the past decade, L'Oreal has invested a total of 2 billion yuan in the center, which is one of L'Oreal's six major regional research hubs and its largest in the Asia-Pacific region.

Perakis-Valat said that L'Oreal China will deliver fewer but bigger innovations in 2015, while accelerating digitalization, and the recruiting and training of the next generation of talents. It will also go deeper in the Chinese market by expanding to fourth- and fifth-tier cities.

Globally, L'Oreal's consolidated group sales reached 22.5 billion euros ($24.13 billion) in 2014, up 3.7 percent year-on-year at constant exchange rates. The fourth quarter gave the best performance last year, with like-for-like of 4.9 percent. One of the worldwide targets for the group this year is to attract another 1 billion new consumers.