Paris, France–French cosmetics giant L’Oreal reported Thursday that its net profit rose 8.4 percent in 2023 despite weak sales in China.
Net profit for the year hit 6.2 billion euros ($6.8 billion) while sales grew 7.6 percent to 41.2 billion euros, it said in a statement.
“In a challenging environment of geopolitical tensions, inflationary pressures, and a stagnating beauty market in China, we delivered our best like-for-like growth in more than 20 years,” excluding the post-Covid rebound in 2021, said CEO Nicolas Hieronimus.
“As we head into 2024, we remain optimistic about the outlook for the beauty market, and confident in our ability to keep outperforming it and to achieve another year of growth in sales and profits,” he said.
While sales fell 5.8 percent to $11.52 billion in North Asia, they jumped 23.2 percent to $3.66 billion in South Asia, Middle East and Africa, and by 24.4 percent to $3.12 billion in Latin America.