Earnings season: Luxe lifts L’Oréal, Unilever sees strong Dove sales and Derma boosts Beiersdorf

Earnings season is underway, with key FMCG companies reporting robust results. L’Oréal’s third quarter is lifted by growth across all divisions, with the Luxe segment showing resilience in its latest quarter. Unilever sees sales jump more than expected thanks in part to its Dove products and the easing of price hike. A rebound in North America and solid sales from Nivea, Aquaphor and Eucerin helped boost Beiersdorf’s bottom line. 

L’Oréal sees third-quarter sales reach €32.4 billion (US$34.9 billion), a 6% increase year-over-year. Luxe accelerated for the third consecutive quarter and Professional Products maintained a steady pace.

“We delivered solid growth of 6% in the first nine months, well-balanced between value and volume, despite multiple turbulences that have negatively impacted our third quarter,” says L’Oréal’s CEO Nicolas Hieronimus.

He notes the beauty giant’s global beauty market growth has been normalizing throughout the year as anticipated. In the developed markets, a gradual easing in pricing after two years of strong inflation drove this momentum.

“Despite that, underlying market trends remain robust in Europe, and North America – as well as in emerging markets,” Hieronimus continues. “The situation in the Chinese ecosystem has become even more challenging, but we believe in the future of this market and hope that the governmental stimulus will help improve consumer confidence.”

“Overall, the beauty category continues to grow, including in units, demonstrating once again its resilience and long-term potential. L’Oréal continues to outperform thanks to our innovation power, the agility of our teams and our capacity to reallocate our resources toward new growth engines.”

“In a context that continues to be marked by economic and geopolitical uncertainties, we remain confident to achieve another year of growth in sales and operating profit and are preparing our own beauty stimulus plan for 2025.”

Unilever reports positive volume growth across all its business groups.Unilever

For Unilever, underlying sales growth in the third quarter was 4.5% against the backdrop of slower market growth. Underlying volume growth increased to 3.6% in Q3, the fourth consecutive quarter of positive and improving volume growth.

All business groups achieved positive volume growth. In line with previous projections, underlying price growth continued to moderate to 0.9% in Q3. The Power Brands performed strongly with 5.4% underlying sales growth, driven by volume growth of 4.3%. Our other brands also delivered volume growth of 1.3% in Q3, up from 1.6% in H1.

Beauty & Wellbeing’s underlying sales grew by 6.7%, with volume growth of 5.7%. Health & Wellbeing and Prestige Beauty delivered a fifteenth consecutive quarter of combined double-digit, volume-led growth.

Personal Care grew 4.4% with 3.1% from volume, driven by a strong Dove performance. Home Care underlying sales increased by 1.9%, with 3.3% volume growth more than offsetting continued negative price growth linked to commodity cost deflation.

Home Care underlying sales grew 1.9%, with volume growth of 3.3%, partially offset by a -1.4% price decline.

“We have delivered a fourth consecutive quarter of positive, improved volume growth, with each of our Business Groups driving higher volumes year-on-year,” says Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher.

“Underlying sales grew 4.5%, led by our Power Brands, with particularly strong performances from Dove, Liquid I.V., Comfort and Magnum. Price growth continued to moderate in line with our expectations.”

“We are starting to see the positive impact from scaling fewer, bigger innovations across our markets supported by increased brand investment…We are on track to deliver our 2024 outlook and are confident that the steps we are taking will help to transform Unilever over time into a consistently higher performing business.”

Beiersdorf

Beiersdorf achieved strong organic sales growth in the first nine months of 2024. Group sales increased year-on-year by 6.5% in organic terms and reached €7.5 billion (US$8.1 billion).

The Consumer Business Segment delivered organic sales growth of 7.3%, generating sales of €6.3 billion (US$6.8 billion).

Beiersdorf achieved strong organic growth sales in the first nine months of the year.In the third quarter of 2024, Beiersdorf’s primary drivers of results were the “rebound” of the North American business, the “continued success” in the Emerging Markets region and the global Derma business.

The Tesa Business Segment grew by 3.1% in organic terms, contributing sales of €1.3 billion (US$1.4 billion)in the first three quarters.

“Looking at the third quarter, I am particularly pleased about fantastic double-digit sales increases in key areas of our business, namely our Derma brands, our North America business resurging after a challenging first half year and the outstanding performance of the Emerging Markets region, which was especially driven by strong Nivea sales,” comments Beiersdorf CEO, Vincent Warnery.

“The luxury market, however, especially in China, continues to be challenging. Our anti-aging breakthrough innovation Epicelline managed to deliver exceptional sales results within just a few weeks after its launch in September.”

“I am very proud of the entire Beiersdorf team for getting our Eucerin Epigenetic Serum off to such a great start. With a growing presence in over 30 countries already, we are well on track to make this our biggest product launch ever. Looking ahead, we expect strong performance overall in the fourth quarter to finish a very successful financial year in this dynamic market environment in line with our full-year guidance.”