Prestige Beauty Sales Surge in China

Total prestige beauty sales in China increased 21% last year, according to a new study by The NPD Group. The skin care and makeup categories each showed healthy growth of 23% and 17%, respectively.

In prestige skin care, all the segments (face essence, face moisturizer, face basic care, eye, sun treatment, body, and all other: hair, lip, nail, etc.) had steady growth, with face essence (+5%) and moisturizer (+21%) taking the lead by capturing nearly half of skin care sales.

By attribute, anti-aging continued to play as the driving engine by taking half of the skin care category sales and posting a robust growth of nearly 27% in 2011, compared to 2010. Hydrating (+19%) and whitening (+15%) skin care also played a big role in category growth, according to NPD.

In prestige makeup, the face segment captured 59% of the category’s dollar share and increased 18% in dollar sales from 2010. Products that make the face look lighter and smoother like foundation and makeup base continued to play a key role in China. Foundation and makeup base led the face category, up 24% and 30%, respectively.

In addition to face products, lip helped drive the growth in makeup, up 26.5% in 2011. Lipstick sales grew 31% and lipgloss posted a 22% increase. On the other hand, sales of eye products were soft (+6%) due to mascara’s sharp decline of 3% in dollars and the slower paced sales of eyeshadow and eyeliner, according to NPD.

More info: www.npd.com