All right. It is 9:00 A.M. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this 2025 annual presentation for the results of L'Oréal. Christophe Babule, our CFO, will kick off with the presentation of our 2025 financial statements. Then each head of division will summarize the 2025 highlights and share with you the outlook for 2026. You have Omar Hajeri, who's President of the Professional Products Division, Fabrice Megarbane, who's our newly appointed President of the Consumer Products Division, Myriam Cohen-Welgryn, in charge of Dermatological Beauty Division, and Cyril Chapuy, President of L'Oréal Luxe. Then I will conclude the first part of the meeting by explaining why 2025 was a defining year for L'Oréal, and why we are uniquely well-placed to seize the ascending currents in emerging beauty trends in order to accelerate our top line growth and deliver superior long-term performance.
We will then move to the Q&A session, which we expect to last around 40 minutes. Finally, I draw your attention to the disclaimer that is now on the screen, and I guess we are ready to hear you, Christophe.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Let me share some of the key 2025 highlights with you. Like-for-like growth came in at 4%, marking another year of market outperformance. At 74.3%, our gross margin reached a new all-time high, up 10 basis points from last year, despite the adverse impact from tariffs. Our operating profit margin increased 20 basis points, touching 20.2% for the first time, and our operating net cash flow of EUR 7.2 billion, up almost 8%, implied cash conversion of over 100%. Sales increased by 1.3%. Foreign exchange had a negative 3.6% impact as the euro appreciated against all of our key currencies. You can find further detail in the appendix of this presentation.
If the exchange rates on the thirty-first of January, 2026 were extrapolated until the end of the year, the impact of currencies on sales would be a -2.5%. The change in scope of consolidation contributed a +0.9%. It reflects the acquisitions of Dr.GJ in March, Medik8 and Color Wow in September, as well as the impact of hyperinflation accounting in Argentina and Turkey. On a like-for-like basis, growth stood at 4%. Volumes were up as we passed the 7 billion unit mark for the first time. Value was positive, driven mostly by mix. Let's now take a look at the progression by quarter.
As you can see on the left, like-for-like growth, adjusted for the impact of our IT transformation, accelerated quarter after quarter, from 2.6% at the beginning to 5% at the end of the year, boosted by the step-up in our innovation pipeline. On the right, you have the reported quarterly like-for-like growth, and as you can see, there is no difference between the adjusted and reported figures on a full year basis. On the subject of IT transformation, 2026 will be our most important year, as we will cover the U.S. as well as the U.K., Ireland, and Australia, New Zealand clusters, and the rollout has already started in the first quarter. By the end of the year, we will have completed around 60% of our total IT transformation, up from close to 30% in 2025.
We will, of course, update you every quarter on the impact this has on our divisional and regional growth numbers. Let's now turn to our regions. All of them show positive momentum, illustrating the power of L'Oréal's geographical footprint, which allows to grow whatever the context, at any time and everywhere. Emerging markets spearheaded our growth at 9.7%. They contributed 17% of group sales and 40% of growth. SAPMENA SSA grew 10.9%, with particularly strong performances in Vietnam and the Gulf countries. Latin America was up 8.3%, with Mexico and Brazil both advancing in high single digits. Growth in Europe remains very robust at 4.4%, which, with particularly strong performances in the Iberia and DACH clusters.
In North America, sales increased at 3.4%, adjusted for the impact of our IT transformation, and they accelerated between first and second half with a very strong finish at 4.5%. In North Asia, sales advanced 0.5%, a figure that masks several distinct market stories. Let's take a closer look. Overall, growth accelerated from -1% in the first half to +2% in the second. This was driven by Mainland China, our single largest market in the region, where growth went from +1% to +5%, helped by the gradual recovery of the market, especially in Luxe. But I know that you expected more from North Asia, given the improving news out of Hainan. The reality is that Hainan is only a small part of the travel retail ecosystem.
As you can see in the chart on left, it accounts for around 20% of the total. What we saw in the other parts of the market was continued softness in Korea and Mainland China travel retail market that was temporarily disrupted by the suspension of Sunrise app and the change in domestic airport operators. To maintain healthy inventory levels, we adjusted our selling in Q4. Sell-out progressively accelerated and was close to flat in the fourth quarter, allowing us to improve our share by 260 basis points. Travel Retail Asia now accounts for less than 4% of our sales, versus more than 6% only three years ago. Therefore, excluding the impact of Travel Retail Asia, our growth at group level accelerated by 1 point each quarter from 3%-4%-5% , and nearly to 6%.
Let's now look at our divisions. On a like-for-like basis, all grew and accelerated between first and second half. Professional Products was the fastest-growing division, up an incredible 7.5%, supported by the ongoing boom in premium haircare. Consumer Products advanced 3.5%, led by haircare and a sharp recovery in makeup in the second half of the year. Luxe grew 2.8%, with momentum accelerating to 3.6% in the second half, and Dermatological Beauty advanced 5.5%, led by both haircare and skincare. All key brands contributed, and SkinCeuticals became the division's third billionaire brand. Let's move on to our categories. Every one of them grew. At 12.9%, haircare was the most dynamic category, driven by strong volume growth. All divisions, Professional, Mass, and Derma, contributed.
Fragrances maintained their double-digit pace at 10.54%, growing twice as fast as their market, driven by our couture brands and boosted by a highly successful launch plan. Makeup increased by 3.5%, with a strong acceleration between first and second half, especially in North America. Hair color advanced by 0.6%, led by Mass, and Skincare was up 0.4%, accelerating to close to 2% in the second half, thanks to the innovation-driven recovery of LDB division. Next, I would like to share with you the development of our e-commerce footprint. In 2025, sales in e-commerce amounted to EUR 13 billion, crossing the 30% threshold for the first time. That's an increase of 200 basis points from 2024.
Let me remind you, back only 10 years ago, e-commerce contributed only EUR 1.3 billion or 5% to our sales. So why does it matter? First, it means that we are winning with the winners. Global beauty market growth in e-commerce is 4x that in brick-and-mortar. Second, e-commerce is a real game changer in emerging markets, where its weight rose by 400 basis points in 2025. Third, e-commerce is not only margin accretive, but also highly cash generative. So let's now move to the P&L. Gross profit rose 1.5% to EUR 32.7 billion. The gross margin reached a record high of 74.3%, up 10 basis points year-over-year, and 50 basis points in the second half.
On a full year basis, tariffs had a negative 20 basis points impact, which was more than offset by a strong contribution from price and mix, as well as cost efficiencies. Research and innovation expenses increased 1.9% to EUR 1.4 billion, equivalent to 3.1% of sales. We continued to invest behind our brands. Advertising and promotion expenses rose 1.2% to EUR 14.2 billion, or 32.2% of sales, and stable versus last year. As anticipated, they increased by 15 basis points in the second half. Selling and administrative expenses were down 10 basis points at 18.8% of sales, reflecting our continued discipline and recurring cost control. All of these lines of the P&L have clearly started to benefit from AI efficiencies.
Last, operating profit amounted to EUR 8.9 billion, up 2.4%. The operating margin increased 20 basis points to a record 20.2, despite an unfavorable FX impact of 40 basis points. Let's now look at operating margin by divisions. In 2025, each division reported an operating margin in excess of 21%, and with the exception of Dermatological Beauty, reached a new record. That of Professional Products was up by 70 basis points at 22.9%. That of Consumer Products increased by 30 basis points to 21.4%. That of Luxe rose by 10 basis points to 22.4%, and that of Dermatological Beauty was flat at 26.1%, with a better balance between the two halves.
Non-allocated expenses, consisting mainly of corporate and fundamental research costs, remained stable at 2.5% of sales. Let's now return to the P&L. The net financial charge came in at EUR 236 million. Total dividends received amounted to EUR 351 million, down from EUR 445 million last year, following the reduction in our stake in Sanofi in February 2025. Income tax, excluding non-recurring items, stood at EUR 2.2 billion, representing a rate of 24.3%. Now, including the exceptional French tax, which amounted to EUR 253 million and non-recurring items, income tax was close to EUR 2.4 billion, representing a tax rate of 27.8%.
Net profit, excluding non-recurring items, amounted to EUR 6.8 billion, and therefore diluted earnings per share came in at EUR 12.71, up slightly compared to last year. To help you estimate your EPS for 2026, I will recommend that you base your calculation on a diluted number of shares of 534.9 million. Non-recurring items amounted to EUR 679 million. They included other income and expenses of EUR 504 million, of which primarily EUR 209 million of restructuring charges related to various reorganization measures at group, divisional, and regional level, and EUR 179 million related to product liability lawsuits. Net profit after non-recurring items came out at EUR 6.1 billion, down 4.4% versus the previous year.
Cash flow decreased by 2.2% to EUR 8.3 billion. Our working capital improved significantly, reflecting more efficient management across all key lines. Capital expenditure of EUR 1.5 billion came in at 3.4% of sales, 40 basis points below last year. Operating net cash flow amounted to EUR 7.2 billion, an increase of 7.8%, implying strong cash conversion. Dividends amounted to EUR 3.9 billion. We spent EUR 2.4 billion on acquisitions, EUR 0.5 billion on share buybacks, and EUR 454 million on lease debt repayments. Investment in non-control entities primarily includes the proceeds from the partial sale of our Sanofi stake last February. The residual cash flow came to a strong EUR 2.4 billion.
Our balance sheet remained robust, with shareholders' equity of EUR 35 billion, or 57% of the total balance sheet. As a result, the financial situation remained very healthy in 2025. At the end of December, net debt amounted to EUR 2.1 billion and to EUR 254 million, excluding the financial lease debt. The gearing ratios stood at 5.9%, the financial leverage at 0.2 times, based on an EBITDA of EUR 10.5 billion. For your information, we just closed on the Galderma transaction we announced last year. This will lead to a cash outflow of EUR 4 billion. After we will have paid for the Kering Beauty acquisition, we estimate our leverage will stand at less than one turn at the end of the year. This will allow us to pursue further opportunities should they arise.
The quality of our performance in 2025, coupled with the strength of our balance sheet and our confidence in the group's outlooks, led the board of directors to propose a 2.9% increase in the dividend to EUR 7.20 per share at the AGM. This results in a payout ratio of 56.6% and illustrates L'Oréal's consistent and dynamic dividend policy. Now, with regards to our L'Oréal For The Future ESG program, 2025 was a key year. At the halfway point of this program, we have reflected on our progress and learnings, refined our roadmaps, and reinforced our commitments. We have introduced new targets addressing key material topics, including virgin plastic reduction, natural regeneration, and water resilience. Let's take circularity.
In 2025, we reduced the use of virgin plastic for product packaging by 37% in absolute compared to 2019, and our objective is to reach 50% by 2030. In 2025, L'Oréal was once again rewarded for its social and environmental performance and recognized among the best companies in the world by nonprofit organizations, rating agencies, and international bodies. We were particularly proud that L'Oréal was awarded a triple-A rating by CDP for a 10th consecutive year, the only company in the world with that distinction. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, Christophe, for this very clear presentation. Now we will start with the presentation of the divisions with the Professional Products Division, our fastest-growing division this year, with Omar Hajeri.
Good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to present the outstanding performance of the L'Oréal Professional Products Division. 2025 was a year of outperformance, a year of profitable expansion, a year where the composition of our growth is a testament to our successful transformation and winning omnichannel strategy. In a professional market growing at +3%, we delivered +7.5% growth, combining volume and value. We crossed EUR 5 billion for the first time. We further reinforced our global leadership with a record market share of 27%, which is more than our three largest competitors combined. This performance reflects our successful premiumization strategy, resulting in structurally healthier margins. We reached a record profit at 22.9%. I would like to thank all my teams for these remarkable results. They know how to blend expertise, passion, and a bold spirit of conquest.
So how did we build our success? Our performance relies on four key drivers, which will continue to power our future growth. The first driver is our strategic focus on premium haircare. The premium haircare market is dynamic at +6% and keeps valorizing. Inspired by influencers and boosted by social media, consumers are sophisticating their haircare routines with new gestures, such as serums, oils, mists .... This dynamic is not a temporary bubble. It is a fundamental structural shift driven by lasting underlying trends: long hairstyles, scalp health concerns, an increasing proportion of population with demanding texturized hair. And it's only the beginning, as even in our most advanced premium markets, such as the U.S., out of 10 haircare products sold, only one is professional. In 2025, our division strongly outperformed in premium haircare and grew by +15%, boosted by Kérastase.
Our portfolio is the most powerful in the industry, with iconic brands which are culturally relevant and have the highest endorsement in hair salons. Growth was driven by the success of our Super Hero treatments and latest launches, benefiting from the most advanced discoveries by L'Oréal Research and Innovation. The second driver is our omni-channel excellence. On the one hand, we have strengthened our footprint in more than 400,000 salons. We have introduced strong innovations, such as the relaunch of L'Oréal Professionnel Majirel, and new beauty tech tools, such as AirLight Pro. This is infusing fresh energy into a challenging salon market. On the other hand, we grew double digits in e-commerce and in selective retail, driven by strong traction among younger consumers and powered by our digital excellence. Together, retail and e-commerce represent 39% of our sales, making our model more efficient and scalable.
The third driver is our geographic expansion. Despite varied market conditions, the division grew and outperformed in every region. Europe was a standout, delivering high single-digit growth. In North America, we strengthened our leadership, while in North Asia, we gained significant market share. And once again, emerging markets remain our strongest engine, with double-digit growth, notably in Gulf countries, India, Brazil, and Mexico. In these countries, we are driving salon modernization, and thanks to our full omni-channel model, benefiting from rising consumption of digitally engaged consumers. Overall, this broad-based momentum enhances our diversification. Our fourth driver is our unique connection with hairstylists. We are interacting with more than 3 million hairstylists. Our unique digital ecosystem, combined with our unrivaled on-the-ground reach, is truly our striking power to reach professionals at scale in every market. We foster loyalty with pros because our relationship is like no other.
We don't just sell products, we co-build the industry and the market with them. In a salon market that is facing challenges, we are more than ever committed to supporting stylists in regaining momentum and long-term attractiveness, for instance, by crafting new concepts and experiences such as hair spas. These four drivers combined position the division on a sustained trajectory of growth. We have a deeper professional and consumer engagement. Our operating model is more future-fit than ever. Last but not least, our diversification and the quality of our earnings give us the firepower to keep investing and further strengthen our competitive edge. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, I'm confident in our ability to maintain our growth momentum with two priorities. First, recruit new consumers. We are entering this year with a strong innovation pipeline.
In haircare, we'll further reinforce our reach among younger consumers with the extension of Kérastase Gloss Absolu for thick hair and Matrix Mega Sleek for texturized hair. In addition, the relaunch of Kérastase Chronologiste with Demi Moore will allow us to engage boomers with a compelling proposition grounded in longevity science. In hair color, we are also focused on regaining momentum with our breakthrough innovation, Redken Shades EQ, designed to boost color services. In styling, the recent acquisition of a fast-growing iconic brand, Color Wow, perfectly complements our portfolio. It propels us as the global leader in the dynamic premium styling segment, and it opens up substantial opportunities for international expansion. Our second priority for 2026, increasingly leverage AI and tech as powerful accelerators for value creation.
In our professional ecosystem, which is data-rich, AI is augmenting our team's capabilities and will considerably transform the way we serve our salon partner. Beauty Tech is also proving to be a true game changer to re-enchant the in-salon experience with high-tech devices, such as K-Scan, for hyper-personalized hair diagnostics deployed in 10,000 salons worldwide. We are the technological leader in the professional beauty industry, and this will powerfully accelerate our growth. To conclude, we are entering 2026 with strong ambitions and with clear levers for value creation. We are ready to continue shaping the future of professional beauty. Thank you.
Thank you, Omar. Thank you so much. Fabrice, let's talk about the Consumer Products Division.
Good morning, everyone. The Consumer Products Division delivered solid growth at +3.5%. 2025 was a year of sequential acceleration. We had a strong finish with a Q4 at +4.8%, thanks to a powerful innovation plan, especially in haircare and makeup. In fact, the global appetite for mass beauty remains high, driven by digital discovery, as savvy consumers seek innovation and best value for money. Per region, North America's spectacular turnaround at +6% demonstrates our ability to drive growth within mature markets. In Europe, growth remains solid and resilient at +3%. Emerging markets fueled over 40% of our total growth, powered by Mexico at +9%, South Africa at +11%, the GCC at +14%, and Vietnam at +31%. Despite the soft mass market in China, L'Oréal kept its number one position.
Our unique and complementary portfolio is the foundation of our performance, with our four global brands growing in 2025. Our mega brand, L'Oréal Paris, achieved another strong year, with mid-single-digit growth boosted by haircare and makeup. The number one beauty brand in the world extended its industry leadership. Garnier, our natural high-tech and feel-good brand, grew at low single digits, but delivered solid performances in haircare and hair color. Despite a challenging market context, Maybelline consolidated its position as the number one makeup brand in the world. NYX, the brand of entertainment, delivered another year of an amazing growth at almost double digits and remains the definitive brand for Gen Z. Among our rising star brands, Mixa, our mass medical champion, grew at +27%, thanks to its successful European rollout.
3CE, our K-beauty makeup brand, grew by +10% as we scaled it across Southeast Asia. Our strong finish in the first quarter allowed us to clearly outperform the market in sellout at +5.7%, with some spectacular highlights. Haircare sold by +13%, with both Elvive and Fructis delivering double-digit growth. U.S. makeup, thanks to our stimulus plan, we bounced back at +7%, and our performance turned the market positive. We also achieved key milestone across emerging markets. In haircare, L'Oréal Paris became the market leader in LATAM and accelerated Elvive across SAPMENA, especially in India. In skincare, we had a huge success with Toque Seco, which doubled the size of Garnier Skin in Brazil in 2025. Now, moving into 2026, our division has identified three strategic levers to further accelerate our growth.
The first lever is to strengthen our exceptional brand portfolio by investing in the equity of our brand and stimulating the market with more relevant innovations to win across all categories. Our brands are more than beauty brands. They are part of the cultural landscape with lasting legacies. This is why we partner with culturally relevant ambassadors, champion social causes, and put on larger-than-life events. The infinite power of our brands build trust and engagement with our consumers. In the most desirable categories, we have blockbuster innovations to come. In haircare, our division is on fire. We'll continue to break records with launches like L'Oréal Paris Elvive Collagen Lifter and Garnier Ultra Doux Grape Moisture. Next, makeup.
As a category leader, we'll keep on stimulating and boldly disrupting the market, and we are doing this with big bets across four brands: Maybelline Lash Sensational Volum' Mascara and Maybelline Serum Lipstick, L'Oréal Paris Extensionist Mascara, and NYX Jelly Job Gloss, and finally, 3CE Multi Eye Color Palette. On skincare, our attack plan features impactful innovations backed by science that delivers superior quality and efficacy. L'Oréal Paris, the number one anti-aging brand in the world, continues to pioneer science with breakthroughs like Revitalift Triple Laser Creamy Serum. Garnier is capturing Gen Z with unisex offering through the rollout globally of the Dry Touch Cream. We have exciting innovations from our two mass medical champions. In Europe, Mixa is launching its anti-reaction range, and we are accelerating the rollout of Dr.G in Asia and beyond, riding the strong tides of the desire for K-beauty.
Our second lever is to drive penetration by growing units and recruiting new consumers. In the developed world, we have a tale of two cities. In Europe and the U.S., we have a significant penetration of over 50%. We will maximize our momentum with target additions like boomers, men, and Latino shoppers, especially in the U.S. Meanwhile, in China, we have plenty of room to grow. We are ramping up innovation across skincare and haircare, and we'll continue to accelerate our growth across online and social platforms. Now, speaking about recruitment opportunities, we will, of course, continue to double down in the emerging markets, where our penetration is around 25%. This region remains our largest recruitment reservoir, with an estimated nearly 500 million new consumers expected in the next five years. These consumers are younger, digitally native, and demand great innovations for good value.
To keep capturing the immense potential of the emerging market, we're scaling our four global brands through relevant innovations. We're also expanding the distribution of our K-beauty stars: 3CE, the number one Korean makeup brand in the world, and Dr.G, the number one mass medical skincare brand in Korea. This allows us to meet consumer wherever they are, as we capitalize on the rise of modern trade and especially e-commerce. Finally, we'll continue adapting to the consumer journey to ensure local relevance, particularly for Gen Z, by leveraging advocacy, influence, and our local content factories. The third and final lever is to deploy a smarter, more virtuous business operating model powered by AI. Our sustainable growth is driven by our scale, our relevance, and our precise execution. Our obsession is to grow in units while valorizing our brands and innovations to democratize and premiumize the mass beauty market.
Thanks to AI, we can further fine-tune our pricing and the revenue growth management. We are also obsessed with being part of our consumers' conversations, and we have two key challenges to turn into opportunities. The first is content creation. We're scaling content at the speed of culture, leveraging advocacy and influence. We'll reach consumers through trusted peer-to-peer connections using precise massive seeding. We call this mass vocacy powered by AI. The second major opportunity is, of course, generative AI. In the current self-service world of mass, AI allows us to connect with consumers at scale by giving them access to expertise and advice at an unprecedented speed. These three levers empower our passionate teams across the world to seize every opportunity, everywhere, every day, from spotting emerging trends to capturing new consumer segments, expanding into untapped territories, and optimizing our operational model with AI and tech.
We are committed to delivering the best innovation and value for consumers without ever compromising our values, because all of our consumers are worth it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Myriam, let's talk dermatology.
Good morning, everyone. The last years have seen LDB reach a new dimension. After years of hypergrowth, the division has become the undisputed leader of dermocosmetics. In 2025 again, LDB grew faster than the market, reaching a record market share at 25.8%. The market decelerated versus 2024, deflated by the U.S. and the spread of copycats beyond dermacosmetics market. Yet it remained robust at +5%, significantly above beauty. Sell-in reached EUR 7.2 billion, up 5.5%, a solid 4% in unit growth, and a sustained 26.1% operating margin. After a slow start, growth accelerated each quarter, hitting double-digit in Q4, driven by the gradual alignment of sell-in, sell-out, and notably, CeraVe's progressive turnaround. Four key success factors explain this overperformance. First, our portfolio of complementary brands covering all consumer needs.
In 2025, as expected, our Beauty Stimulus Plan boosted our innovation weight of business by 150 basis points. La Roche-Posay and CeraVe consolidated their position in the worldwide skincare top five. La Roche-Posay grew by almost 6% in sell-in, significantly outpacing the market. It was propelled by Cicaplast and the Melasyl anti-pigmentation technology. Now, CeraVe. Its turnaround is a real highlight. It helped the brand land at nearly 5%, boosted by the successful launch of intensive moisturizer, which helped recruit both boomers and males. Even in the U.S., the brand outpaced the market in H2, re-accelerating in skincare and successfully entering haircare. In emerging and China, the brand achieved high double-digit growth and continued to play a key role in recruiting new consumers. New news, you've heard it, SkinCeuticals became our third billionaire brand, with another double-digit year of pioneering integrated skincare.
After the tremendous expansion of P-TIOX, which complements toxin, the brand launched A.G.E. Interrupter Serum. It is the first-ever serum clinically proven to address what is called the Ozempic face, the sagging effect following rapid weight loss. Vichy beat the market, leading longevity science in pharmacies with Dercos Aminexil Regen, a unique patented formula that extends hair lifespan. Second growth factor, our medical expertise, meaning our ability to power medical with digital to reach more doctors with more efficacy. In 2025, we reached 320,000 doctors, notably thanks to the rollout of our HCP 360 omni-channel platform. All brands consolidated their leadership position worldwide in dermatological prescription and dispensing clinics. LDB also reinforced its number one position in scientific publications. The third factor is our online leadership, which amplifies our consumer reach. E-com is up by 18%, significantly beating the market.
In the U.S., SkinCeuticals D2C, with its customized consumer experience, now represents 35% of the brand's business. We have also consolidated our number one position in medical advocacy. Finally, the fourth success factor, our international expansion. There are many noteworthy LDB performances. Emerging market, +13%. Mainland China, just outstanding at +19%, and big achievement, SkinCeuticals has become the number one derma brand. Europe and North America beat the market. In Q1, after a soft Q1, due to last year's basis, both zones accelerated to reach +7% in Q4, thanks to service turnaround, SkinCeuticals' boom, and La Roche-Posay's sustained performance. So what is the outlook for 2026? I am confident that LDB will continue to post strong growth. We expect the market to remain dynamic, roughly 1.5 points above beauty, propelled by three long-term trends.
Firstly, the quest for health and longevity. This trend, as you know, is driven by the unfortunate rise of skin sufferers, 2.2 billion people. It's reinforced by the boom of aesthetic. Today, 850 million people intend to have aesthetic procedures. That is 30% more than two years ago. Secondly, the growth of derma hair care. Hair is now the fastest-growing segment and the second reason for consulting a derm. Yet, derma hair care is still underdeveloped. It's only one-third of hair care in total beauty. This trend. Third trend, the growth reservoir of emerging in China, which will provide new consumer pools. In this market, the weight of derma in total beauty is three times lower than in the most developed countries. In this context, we are uniquely positioned to overperform. Why?
Our unmatched partnership with aesthetic clinics gives SkinCeuticals and SkinBetter Science a clear competitive edge to seize the boom of procedure doers. In parallel, we will continue to consolidate our prescription leadership, reaching even more doctors. With our complementary portfolio of iconic brands, we cover all consumer needs and drive value through premium and affordable brand mix on all categories. In Q1, for instance, we will fill the affordability gap on sun. And finally, we have an unprecedented pipeline of med-augmented innovation. This will bring around 70 extra basis points in innovation weight of business. In Q1 alone, we will introduce three new technologies: La Roche-Posay Effaclar supramolecular delivery system, Lipikar Neurobiome's anti-itching molecule, and Dermacol's collagen filler longevity technology, without forgetting Vichy's new collagen supplement.
As the leader of dermatological beauty, we will also continue to support our skin health ecosystem with our L'Oréal Act for Dermatology program. In 2026, our certified image databank of skin pathologies will transform derm education and increase access to skin health everywhere in the world. So to conclude, I believe that this division, with its five iconic brands powered by a unique medical engine, will continue to shape the future of beauty. Thank you.
Thank you, Myriam. Cyril?
Good morning. In 2025, L'Oréal Luxe delivered a robust performance, with a +2.8 like for like growth and EUR 15.6 billion in net sales. We saw a clear acceleration over the year, with growth climbing to +3.6 in H2. We very substantially outperformed the selective market, which, after starting in negative territories, closed the full year at +1. Worth noting that excluding travel retail Asia, still in reset mode, the market remained dynamic at +3, driven by couture and premium segments. 2025 marked L'Oréal Luxe's 15th consecutive years of market share gains. In fact, with a 30 basis point increase, it was the strongest progress in market share since 2020, further cementing our global leadership of luxury beauty.... And I should mention that, Q4 shows an even stronger acceleration of market share gain.
This leadership is anchored by a balanced regional footprint. We now hold the number one position across all four of our geographic regions. In China, the market's pivoted back to growth. Following a negative 2024, it accelerated strongly during the year to close fully at 25 at +3%, and reinforced our very strong dominance there in China, with an impressive market share of around 30%. Thanks to China and a healthy management of travel retail, we achieved a key milestone in North Asia. We became the region's number one luxury player for the very first time in our history. Within a still declining market, our performance remained stable, and we captured significant share. In Europe, our momentum remained very robust, with a growth of +6%, double the pace of the market.
In North America, we were on par with the market, but our sell-outs accelerated very strongly in the second half, especially in Q4, where we were twice the market. Finally, in emerging markets, we sustained a high growth trajectory at +12% on a market itself at +7%. This leadership is anchored by a strengthened category balance. Our fragrances remained a powerful growth engine, surging by 10%, more than doubling the market's growth rate. This success was driven by couture hypergrowth. Libre by Saint Laurent is now the world's number one feminine fragrance. In the U.S., Valentino Born in Roma franchise secured the top spots for both feminine and masculine. Our strategic launches, Prada Paradoxe, Miu Miu's Mutin, had exceptional consumer appeal. And we must also mention the impressive 20% growth of our fragrance collections, led by Aesop and Margiela.
In skincare, our performance was on par with a still difficult market, even if momentum improved quarter after quarter. Key driving factor, high-science innovation, like Lancôme Rénergie Triple Serum and Helena Rubinstein Re-Plasty PX50. Simultaneously, in skincare, our recent acquisitions proved to be unstoppable growth engines. Takami has forged ahead with its successful global expansion. Medik8 delivered an explosive +40% growth and started its rollout in the West, positioning us at the heart of the key medical luxury trend. Aesop continued its strong upward trajectory at +9%. Last but not least, Yue Sai, our Chinese beauty brand, has been totally revitalized in China and grew by 25%. In makeup, we performed in line with the broadly stable market. Our couture houses, notably Prada and Saint Laurent, demonstrated remarkable momentum, and Lancôme successfully re-engaged younger demographics with the Idôle line.
In 2025, L'Oréal Luxe overperformed in both brick and click channels. In offline, accounting for two-thirds of our sales, we strive to elevate experience and services, and this across all our distribution formats, from stunning freestanding stores all around the world, to stunning corners in department stores, to gondolas in specialty, or very, very eventful pop-ups in high-traffic areas. In online, one-third of our sales, we remained pioneers. Lancôme inaugurated its new D2C with a state-of-the-art e-experience. Our strategic partnership with Amazon expanded way beyond the U.S., and our endeavors with TikTok Shop and social commerce yielded impressive results. And last but not least, we're also drastically accelerated on supercharged content creation and versioning with AI.
All in all, L'Oréal Luxe is a stronger than ever market leader, and despite the tariffs and FX context, in 2025, we succeeded in improving our operating margin once again, reaching 22.4%, way above all our key competitors. Looking ahead to 2026 now. Well, we anticipate a favorable market reacceleration, building on the dynamism of the second half of this year, especially in U.S. and China. And L'Oréal Luxe is uniquely positioned to significantly outperform this luxury market. Why? Well, let me give you three reasons. Reason one, our unparalleled portfolio. Spanning price points from EUR 20-EUR 500, we cover every luxury segment, allowing us to expand our consumer base across all geographies year after year.
In 2026, our five mega brands have extremely powerful plans, and this year, we will also welcome the beautiful brands that Kering decided to entrust us with. Creed will allow us to drastically accelerate in the high-growth collection fragrance segment, and we will be scaling Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta at the same time as Miu Miu. And for this, we will follow the proven hypergrowth blueprints of Valentino and Prada, which both scaled from EUR 100 million to over EUR 700 million in just five years.... Last but not least, in 2026, Aesop will continue its distinctive expansion with 20 new signature stores, mainly in Asia. Reason two: our unique innovation power. Next year, we're expecting new to account for an even greater proportion of L'Oréal Luxe revenue. This is what's going to deliver us a return to strong growth in skincare.
Reigniting our skin engine on our biggest brand is a non-negotiable, and we have what it takes, and this as early as H1. Lancôme Longevity MD, the biggest Lancôme innovation since Génifique. Kiehl's Ultra Facial Medicated, the ultimate repair cream for skin emergencies, and Biotherm Electrolytes, a totally new territory, supplemented hydration. Innovation will also allow us to maintain high dynamism in fragrances, and this also as early as H1, with launches that are origin market and that got off to very strong starts already. Emporio Armani Power of You or YSL Libre Berry Crush. And also in fragrance with additional accessible offers to recruit younger generations. Finally, we will, of course, keep reigniting the makeup category with innovation, with powerful, colorful initiatives and couture desirability. Third reason: our balanced regional footprint.
As you know, we are number one in all four regions, and in 2026 we will accelerate everywhere. We will double down on our leadership in the U.S., which is still a massive conquest region for us. We will reinforce our top-tier positions in every market in Europe. We will continue our conquest in emerging markets, with a special focus on GCC and Brazil. And last but not least, we will leverage the new wave of consumer enthusiasm in the Chinese ecosystem. At L'Oréal Luxe, our ambition is crystal clear: furthermore, accelerate in 2026. Beyond the brands, we have world-class talents, truly fantastic teams, and I'd like once again to thank them very sincerely. Beyond the brands, we have also very powerful means, optimized NPs and an obsession with ROI.
As the world's number one luxury beauty player, we are more than ever determined to lead the industry into a new era of profitable high growth. Thank you.
Thank you, Cyril. Good morning again. Very happy to be with you today, and I will now explain how L'Oréal's been performing again, regardless of the context, and how it deeply transformed to prepare for future growth, and why it is ready for acceleration, which I guess is a word you've heard in every division. Let me first comment on our full-year results. In 2025, L'Oréal delivered strong results, reinforcing our leadership, increasing our sales and profit, once again demonstrating the resilience and agility of the company. Our like-for-like growth of +4% puts us ahead of the global beauty market, which grew around +3.5%, and well ahead of the majority of our large listed peers, which is particularly impressive when you consider our size. As we had promised, growth accelerated significantly between the first and the second half.
This was driven by the step-up in our innovation activity. The contribution from new launches more than doubled between first and second half, and this was supported by the gradual improvement in global beauty market growth. three divisions out of four beat their respective markets, and CPD had a strong and very promising finish, particularly in. the U.S. One of the major highlights in L'Oréal second half is the recovery in its two largest markets. In the U.S., growth doubled from 2%-4%, driven by a strong recovery in LDB and CPD. In China, growth accelerated from low to mid-single digit, boosted by the recovery in the selective market and strong outperformance by the Luxe teams. I can tell you that in both markets, the year is off to a strong start.
Another highlight was the continued dynamism in emerging markets, one of our key areas of consumer conquest, as you know. In aggregate, they accounted for 70%, 17% of sales and as much as 40% of sales growth. Particularly impressive was the GCC cluster, our fifth largest growth contributor, followed closely by Mexico and Brazil. India, though, is not meeting expectations, and we have a new set-up there starting this year. One of the strong drivers of our growth has been e-commerce, where we continue to grow in double-digit and gain share, illustrating L'Oréal's continued digital leadership. Its weight surpassed the 30% mark for the first time, up 2 points from last year. This increase was broad-based across all our regions, but especially strong in SAPMENA, where it's a real game changer.
We are growing in e-retail, in D2C, and even more with pure players, where our teams are making strong progress at mastering the algorithms and the influencer game. Our global multi-brand community, L'Oréal Star, allows us to leverage the L'Oréal Cloud with 300,000 influencers across the world. In 2025, we reinvented L'Oréal's creative marketing playbook, evolving at the speed of culture, with the fast adoption of AI to create more, cheaper, and better content in our Create AI Tech Studio. But also with the increase of what we call beauty-tainment, where we reach our audience in highly culturally relevant context. A good example is the last season of Emily in Paris, where the L'Oréal Paris is at the core of the plot of one episode.
In a world marked by growing economic and geopolitical uncertainty, the importance of a virtuous P&L cannot be overstated, and our finance teams once again did an outstanding job, allowing us to propose a further 2.9% increase in the dividend to EUR 7.20. Lastly, I'm proud to say that L'Oréal reaffirmed its commitment to being a sustainability and responsibility leader with its new L'Oréal For The Future program, and as you saw in Christophe's presentation, we received multiple accolades for it. But for me, the most important achievement of 2025 is how, while delivering on business, we have been deeply transforming to prepare L'Oréal for future growth. We have been investing record amounts in transforming the company, in building new growth engines for the future.
With a total of EUR 1.5 billion, 2025 was a record year of investment in tech to leverage L'Oréal's scale with even greater agility and speed. AI is at the core of L'Oréal's new playbook, and the deployment of One L'Oréal's IT backbone is just the first and necessary step. Our newly created AI transformation team is implementing multiple AI use cases at scale to deliver strong value. Value for the consumer first, with AI-powered diagnosis and personalized recommendations to facilitate their choices. L'Oréal Paris Beauty Genius is a successful first step, not only, a great learning experience, and L'Oréal is set to be the reference source of beauty knowledge for LLMs through partnerships with the major players, with the objective to make our brand the destination of choice of consumers. Value for our main functions to increase L'Oréal's competitive moat.
Two examples: in marketing, BET IQ maximizes our ROI through predictive modeling. In 2026, it should cover 10 countries and over 50% of our optimizable A&P, while CREATECH, powered by NVIDIA, enables content mass production at lower costs. In research, we leverage AI-based models, including those co-developed with IBM, to speed up the discovery of new molecules. Over the last 12 months, we have tested more molecules than in the previous five years together and have managed to save up to 40% of the time to market. Value for our employees, of course, whose productivity and creativity are augmented by the daily use of L'Oréal GPT and more than 9,000 AI companion. And of course, value for the company, as these use cases and those to come represent significant productivity on multiple lines of the P&L. 2025 was a record year of innovation.
With our Beauty Stimulus Plan, the weight of business from new rose by 150 basis points, and that's bound to continue. At 725, L'Oréal filed the highest number of patents in its history, and this is the promise of more disruptive innovation and superior launches. And I'm proud to say that these efforts earned L'Oréal the title of the most innovative company in Europe from Fortune Magazine. Finally, 2025 was a record year of acquisitions. We clearly strengthened our competitive position after Aesop in 2023 and Dr.G early 2025, we filled gaps in our portfolio with the bolt-on acquisitions of Medik8 and Color Wow, fast-growing brands with technology that we will roll out globally. L'Oréal further cemented its luxury leadership with Jacquemus, and most importantly, Kering Beauty. Kering Beauty represents a major opportunity.
It completes our presence in the eau de parfum fragrances, and when you see that YSL now is bigger in beauty than in fashion, I will let you imagine what we could do with Gucci Beauty. When I look at the map of L'Oréal's brand portfolio, which we regularly assess and prune, I feel that we're in the best position to seize the rising current in each category and serve all levels of purchasing power. We are opening new growth opportunities with two strategic investments in fast-growing beauty adjacencies, with our upcoming longevity JV with Kering and with the increase in our participation in Galderma, a global leader in the highly attractive aesthetics market. When I look at how we transform in 2025, I feel that L'Oréal is stronger than ever and ready to accelerate its growth and expand beyond its boundaries.
The beauty market will be boosted by several major and lasting underlying trends, which will benefit L'Oréal. The number of beauty consumers is steadily increasing. Middle classes are growing in emerging markets, teenagers are entering the market ever younger, and with the extended lifespans, consumers in developed countries are using products ever longer. We are confident that L'Oréal will reach 2 billion consumers in the next decade. Penetration of e-commerce continues to accelerate and reduce consumer frictions. This is obviously a major growth engine for L'Oréal as we consistently outperform this channel. Price ladders are stretching from the very affordable to the most expensive, allowing anyone to enter beauty and then trade up. There is no doubt that we have the very best portfolio in the industry to cater to this trend. Routines and beauty protocols are sophisticating.
This is the result of the explosion of beauty conversations on social platform, as well as the global longevity health trend, obsession with health and longevity, which expands our category from just cosmetic products to services, supplements, and procedures. As proven many times, gloom leads to a stronger appetite for indulgence and beauty dopamine, and consumers crave newness, which we know how to deliver. Finally, the increase of diversity creates new needs for skin and particularly for hair. Consider that the population with textured hair is projected to grow by 400 million in the next 15 years, creating a boom in needs for hair treatments. L'Oréal is the only beauty company always ready to surf on this strength, thanks to the powerful combination of its best-in-class R&I, its multi-division category strategy, leveraging the power of its unique brand portfolio, and of course, consistent execution excellence.
Let's talk about categories. In haircare, we have truly taken advantage of the category's sophistication and will continue our multi-division conquest. In recent years, we launched multiple breakthrough innovations, outperforming the market 2.5x and winning across our three divisions to satisfy the growing need for hair treatments and scalp care. Growth in professional products now stands at twice its historic average, with Kérastase as its crown jewel. Consumer products have seen a strong acceleration of Elvive and Fructis, with a third consecutive year of double-digit growth. And in dermatological beauty, as you've heard, Dercos' phenomenal growth single-handedly boosted the Vichy brand, and CeraVe's entry into U.S. medical haircare is off to a promising start. And we continue to increase our rate of innovation with a full launch plan for 2026. Haircare is both a source of recruitment and increasing profitability.
One of our white spaces was the styling category that has been exploding over the last year, with #hairstyle attracting more than 10 billion views per month. The acquisition of Color Wow catapults us into the global leadership position, giving us the right to win in styling as we start globalizing the brand. Let's now move to fragrances. As the usage of multiple scents nurture the fragrance boom, L'Oréal is building a unique powerhouse. Fragrances are boosted by the entry of young consumers, particularly young men, who are truly crazy about the category, with the wardrobe effect leading to multiple fragrance usage, and by the quest of uniqueness and personalization, leading to the rise of eau de parfumerie collection fragrances. This global trend is particularly noticeable in Asia, where it is new, and of course, the Middle East, where it's not new.
In luxury fragrances, L'Oréal is the global market leader, a position we continue to steadily reinforce. The incredible success stories of YSL, Armani, and now Prada and Valentino demonstrate our unique capacity to combine the inspiration of great couture brands with our own fragrance creation and marketing know-how. In feminine fragrances, L'Oréal has the number one, two, and three brands in Europe, and we conquered the love of young men with our most successful record-breaking launches, MYSLF from YSL in 2023 and Paradoxe by Prada this year. So I'm truly excited at the prospect of replicating this winning recipe on such magic brands such as Jacquemus, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga or Gucci, each with a very different personality.
To fully cover the market in terms of price point and trends, we're doubling down on eau de parfum collections with Maison Margiela, Aesop, and soon Creed, while addressing the consumer in search for more affordable scents with the rollout of mists in several of our brands. There again, L'Oréal is in the winning seat and in the best position to accelerate. In makeup, it's all about creativity and speed. Being influenced by fashion trends and over-indexing with younger consumers is the least predictable of our categories, but it's also the one where leaders can actually make the trend and make the market, as we demonstrated with the second half acceleration in the U.S., entirely powered by L'Oréal. Makeup is all about innovation and activation. We have turbocharged our launch intensity in makeup to twice that of any other category.
In consumer products, all of our brands stepped up their innovation game. In the U.S., the division widened the gap to the market. In Luxe, the couture brand, agile growth in the mid-teens, thanks to the strong launch plans of YSL and Prada. We are doubling down on innovation again in 2026 with a very strong launch plan. Innovation is key, but activation at the speed of culture is what connects to the youth. Just think of If You Know, You Know, a great campaign, Maybelline's Miley Cyrus reinvention of the historical single, or the nostalgic return of Lancôme's Juicy Tubes, repositioned for the TikTok era. Here again, the breadth of our portfolio in terms of price points and beauty archetypes, from couture trendsetters to Gen Zs to working women, allows us to satisfy and recruit all consumers.
Finally, we will be winning again in skincare by bridging health and beauty and pioneering the science of longevity. Skincare is clearly the category where we have the biggest acceleration opportunity, because after eight years of strong outperformance, 2025 has not met L'Oréal standards. The skincare, the skincare playbook is the one that has changed the most with the proliferation of fun indies with quite fantasy claims. So we have changed our own playbook. We increased innovation in the second half and revised our media and engagement strategies. And even though skincare is less reactive than makeup, it does work. The proof is in the pudding. We stepped up innovation in Dermatological Beauty, our most skincare-focused division, and sales growth accelerated quarter after quarter. CeraVe started to turn the corner in its all-important U.S. home market.
SkinCeuticals became the division's third billionaire brand, thanks to the success of its new launches and the dynamic trend in aesthetics, and Vichy accelerated strongly in the second half of 2025. For 2026, we have a full pipeline across all divisions. Our unique brand portfolio enables us to play at multiple price points, from EUR 3 for our recently launched Garnier Dry Touch Cream in Brazil, to EUR 450 for Helena Rubinstein PX50. This allows us to recruit new consumers in emerging markets while accompanying our existing consumers during their aging journey. We will start the global rollout of Dr.G, tapping into the continued K-beauty hype and, of course, Medik8, our first luxury beauty brand... L'Oréal will continue its successful multi-division attack on body care, which is new, and is following the same premiumization path as hair care with Mixa, CeraVe, NYX, or Aesop.
But the real opportunity in skin lies in the increase of lifespans, the focus on preventive health, and new perceptions of aging. Longevity is fundamentally reshaping the consumer skincare journey, from reactive anti-aging to proactive skin health span. With over a decade and a half dedicated to longevity research, we are uniquely positioned to offer advanced beauty protocols, and they include diagnostic tools like cell bioprint, topicals, like this new Lancôme Longevity with urolithin A, which is just hitting the market, devices like the LED face masks that we introduced at this year's CES in Las Vegas, and supplements, which we will extend across additional brands this year. We have multiple groundbreaking molecules in the pipe discovered by our advanced research, or sourced from our extended partners' ecosystem, and tomorrow, from the scientific partnership with Galderma. So let me conclude. L'Oréal is entering 2026 stronger than ever.
In a dynamic beauty market, we have what it takes to increase our momentum, once again, outperform the market, and accelerate our growth, boosted by an even stronger innovation pipeline within a systematic multi-division strategy. The future looks bright. We operate in a highly attractive market, not just because of its historic organic growth, but because it is expanding to new services, new categories, new technologies, where L'Oréal will play its role. Consumers are entering beauty ever earlier and are staying ever longer, engaging in more complete beauty strategies as life expectancy rises around the world. As I just illustrated, L'Oréal has what it takes to keep winning across all categories, channels, and regions. In an increasingly complex environment, our unique combination of scale and agility is a very powerful competitive advantage. Above all, our success is rooted in our unique L'Oréal culture.
The passion, expertise, and fighting spirit of our teams are the real secrets behind our success today, and the number one reason why we will continue to lead the beauty industry tomorrow. Thank you. Okay, we are ready for your question, which I guess you've been expecting to ask, but it was important for us to share with you the ambitious visions and plans of our four divisions and how we see L'Oréal moving ahead. So we are ready for you. Céline, we'll start with you, and then we'll go to you. Hello. Go to Olivier after that.
Thank you. Good morning. My first question is, well, on the market growth for 2026, and surprisingly, so 2025 was 3.5, I think you said on the slide, and I think it was a mirror image of 2024, which was strong H1, weak H2, and then 2025 was weak H1, strong H2. So as we look into 2026, I know the exit rate is quite better. You mentioned that in the fourth quarter, but, how do we think for the full year? I think some of your peers are mentioning weakening Europe, and then if you could as well talk about the China run rate. That's my first question. My second question for Christophe, you mentioned that there was volume growth in 2024-2025. Can you give us the, the split between volume and price mix?
As I think into 2026, there are a few moving parts like tariffs, like M&A, inflation, and the U.S. dollar. How should we think of all of that in terms of the margin outlook? Thank you.
So, as far as 2026 growth, I think, experience, you know, you get more experience as a-- every year as a CEO, shows that making two accurate predictions can create some lots of talks around the year. So I'll be very careful today. What I can say is that, the run rate on the second half was in the 4-4.5 bracket that we had discussed last year, and that the year is starting pretty well, in all markets. We don't see a slowdown in Europe, so we don't... We see pretty good sell-out in the U.S. and in China. Emergings remained dynamic.
There was a bit of a slowdown at the end of the year in Latin America, but overall, I see the market as being faster in 2026 than it was in 2025. And you know, I'll let you make your calculations on the actual second half run rate, but we are—as you could hear, we are pretty ambitious for 2026. The word I think we've most used in our presentation is acceleration. That's what we felt, with the exception of this travel retail disruption that was unexpected. But overall, we are quite positive. The year starts well. People want beauty, and probably that's the other learning from last year.
We created this—we decided to what we call Beauty Stimulus Plan to accelerate our rate of innovation. I think when the world is a bit more, you know, shaken, when consumers are a bit less enthusiastic, we have to tempt them more. And it took us six months because you can't, you know, make the launches appear like this to get them going. And 2026 is gonna be even higher in terms of innovation in all categories, in all divisions. And we saw in Q4 that it did work, and in Q3, too, in sell-out. So, you know, in the end, the market will be what it will be, but we definitely intend to do better.
... Okay, maybe I follow with your second part of the question. So, 2025, again, was a year where we had growth both in volume and in value. Probably more towards the value, because it accounted for nearly 80% of the growth. And, within this value, it's not only pricing that has been acting in the right, in the right way, but also mix. But, overall, that's, like last year, a good balance between volume and and value. For 2026, of course, we will still have to manage headwinds, the same way, by the way, we did in 2025. So we will have a probably a slightly higher impact on tariffs. Of course, this is something that is pretty unpredictable.
As I said, in 2025, the impact was 20 basis points, so you can expect this impact to be a bit higher in 2026, because it would be on full year. But we've been pretty good, and we will keep doing that in 2026 in pricing, because this brought more than 25 basis points in 2025. You know that at L'Oréal, it's very important to keep the growth margins, so we'll keep working on that. We had also a positive impact on mix, and I do believe that with the growth of, for example, our Luxe Division that is accelerating, there will be still a positive impact in 2026. So we'll find a way, like usual, to navigate into this, but it's for us, it's still critical to keep our growth margin at a very high rate.
Olivier?
... Goldman Sachs. Two questions, please.
I think you need the mic.
Thank you. Olivier Nicolai, Goldman Sachs. Two questions: so can you go back first to the travel retailing in North Asia, just to clarify, because it was a bit of a surprise today. Could you quantify the impact it had on the group in Q4, the difference between sell-in, sell-out? And should we expect, therefore, some restocking in Q1? And then secondly, more broadly, you mentioned AI efficiencies. We've also seen some SAP implementation in 2025. How should we think about the SG&As and potential savings you could see there in the midterm? Thank you.
So on travel retail, it's true that this, the last quarter was not what we expected. We'd actually piped a number of our launches, Helena Rubinstein, to name one, in Q3, which was positive for us in invoicing. And if I look at Q4, as you've heard, the Sunrise app, which is the main app that's duty paid within mainland China, was closed for various reasons. And then there were also changes in operators in Beijing and Shanghai that reduced the sell-out and the and led to de-stocking. So if I look at our performance in Q4, we had a mid-teens negative in sell-in, and we had quasi-flat, I think it was -1 , in sell-out for the Q4.
So we really, you know, avoided to have inventory piled up, so we end the year with a healthy inventory. Therefore, you know, prediction on the market, we hope that the market is gonna be flattish. We contemplate it to be flattish in travel retail Asia for the year. And of course, we've been gaining share, 260 basis points, and we intend to continue to do so. So it was more a invoicing, selling issue than a sell-out issue for us, but it did clearly impact the North Asia Q4, which you all noted. But that's, I think that's a temporary disruption. And-
Yes, maybe one word on AI, because, of course, we are already committed to grasp, you know, this technology and take the benefit of it in all the key P&L lines. There are several big initiatives at the group level, and I will probably focus on just three of them. The first one is what we call the Revenue Growth Management. So, what we're using is the big data that we have to improve the way we price our products, at least in big geographies, because this requires a lot of data, and we have now all the platforms, you know, to manage that, and most important, even the teams to run this technology.
The second one is to optimize our advertising expenses and overall our promotional and advertising, by the way. So we have a tool, and I think you know, called BET IQ. In 2025, it was already roll out in nine countries, I think, and-
nine in 2025, 10 in 2026. By the way, we're not going to roll it out in all country-
Yeah
... because we have another tool that's a scaler, that allows countries that are smaller, where we will not invest, to create the tool that to benefit from the learnings-
Yeah
... of all the similar situations. So, in the end, I think we should be pretty effective in everywhere by the end of 2026.
And, as you know, this is bringing a better ROI, at least on year one, and this is what we've been observing in all the countries we've been rolling out this year. And the last one, because for us it's very important, is on the SG&M. Because it's obvious that on certain functions at the group level and with the scale of the group, there are already some impacts. I'm thinking about first in my area in finance, where we see already those tools bringing a lot of productivity in the way we compute our accounting, our treasury, and also our financial control. So this will come still year after year.
It will not a big bang next year, but we are, of course, advancing into those new technologies to further decrease our SG&M.
Please, Jeremy. Mic.
... Hi there, Jeremy Fialko, HSBC. So, two from me. First one is when you look at your performance versus the market, you had the beauty stimulus-
Mm.
A lot of very successful innovations, and you were about 50 basis points ahead of the market. When you look back at 2025, what do you think are the things that you perhaps could have done to have created a bit more clear water between yourselves and the market? Is it innovation, or are there some other aspects that you would sort of like to highlight? Then the second question is on the Chinese ecosystem as a whole. I guess it's been very complicated, where you've had the mainland that's doing better. You've had a lot of disruption in travel retail, maybe some sales get shifted from one venue to another. So maybe would you try and kind of think about it as sort of one complete whole?
Or kind of where do you see it at the moment, and what are your kind of expectations for it in 2026? Thanks.
Okay, so on the performance, you know, for me, it's very clear. There's one thing I'm not happy about: skincare. Skincare market, I mean, we've been really outpacing this market for eight years. That was... That hasn't been the case in 2025. And the reason is double. One is that we've—before, skincare was about establishing, you know, long pillars that you were growing year after year, and the pace has accelerated with the development of indie brands that come and go, but come up with, you know, often fantasy claims that aren't really supported. And we had, you know, I would say, a low level of innovation in skincare, particularly on the first half of the year.
As always, we've analyzed, we've diagnosed, we've reacted, we've seen what we, we had to change. Sometimes it's about changing, you know, improving some formulas, but most of the time it's the pace of the innovations, the claim, the claims we make, and it's the engagement strategies that have to be a bit more diverse, leveraging our portfolio. Because what I showed, and I think that's pretty what I tried to communicate during my presentation, is that we really approach categories with the breadth of our divisions. You know, when we launch the Garnier Dry Touch in Mexico, that has been an absolutely fabulous success and which we're rolling out; it's not a very expensive cream.
We're not going to promise on this one that it, you know, it reduces wrinkles or makes you look younger, but it's a fabulous formula, and it's very affordable, and it's great for emerging markets, hot climates, and young people. On the other hand, you've got the Helena Rubinstein product, with 50% Pro-Xylane, which is truly super efficacious, not to mention the new Longevity MD range from Lancôme. So frankly, the playbook of skincare has changed, and we've had to react. So you know, if we had done a normal year on skincare, let's say +5, probably our growth would have been 1 or 1.5 points higher. So that's really been a focus.
Of course, we have to continue to do well in the other categories, but I think we have what it takes. So that's, that's the one thing. And by the way, it's a good segue to your second question, because skincare is the biggest category in Asia. If I look at the Chinese ecosystem, which indeed we follow with the combination of travel retail and domestic market, because there are, you know, fluctuating spending and consumers, overall, it's been improving, you know, month after month.
We had this travel retail disruption in December, but we feel that, first of all, and that's the most important thing for us, China is back to positive territory and also back to a positive luxury consumption, because there was a moment when consumers were buying more mass products. We see that with the probably the stock market in China being at a better level. We see that consumers are back into buying high-quality products from the luxury brands and also dermatological beauty. We see Kérastase flying in China. So, I feel that there is a bit more of confidence to buy more premium products in China. That's what we see at the beginning of the year. By the way, there's no change.
We'll see, of course, because Chinese New Year always creates different comparatives, but it smells good, as we say. And travel retail, you know, I believe we've hit the bottom. Now, a lot of the downtown stores have closed, which was a big drag on 2025. Airports have been progressing, traffic has been progressing and is back to levels that are at the level of in North Asia of 2019, and therefore, we'll go back to what travel retail used to be, which is, you know, people buying gifts in airports at a good price.
So, all this put together, you know, we've set ourselves, you know, a growth ambition in this part of the world, and it will be driven by all divisions, but more premium products. A brand like SkinCeuticals is flying in China, too. So it's all this that makes me, without being crazy, but still being ambitious for a positive year in North Asia. Ladies first, always, and then we'll go to Charles ensuite. Hello, please.
Good morning. So two questions from me, please. One on Dermatological Beauty and one on new innovation. So Dermatological Beauty, can we expect the cadence we observe in Q4 to continue into 2026? And in addition to, you know, strong brand execution, any other factors around market we should think about, for example, drugstore channel in the U.S., what's the latest on that?
... and on innovation, another year of ambitious innovation plan, what give you confidence that the R&D and the function, the marketing can keep up with the speed and the magnitude of the planned launch that you have?
So as I said, the dermatological market, the dermocosmetic market is pulled by a very long-term trend that we believe will continue to play a big role in the coming years. As I said, we expect the market to remain robust, and we expect that we will continue to overperform versus this market, leveraging the strengths of our very powerful portfolio. SkinCeuticals seizing the boom of aesthetics, La Roche-Posay significantly overperforming the market and leveraging the dermatology pathology. And finally, on the U.S., and obviously the turnaround of CeraVe, that is a key highlight of the year. On the exposure to drugs, as I answered last year, our exposure is limited, and we have demonstrated that we're able to win with the winner and have a channel strategy that allows us to overperform the market.
So, how can we cope with increasing innovation? It's a very good question, because, you know, it's-- you have to create a lot of products to put them on the market. And I think there are... probably the main reason or the main additional capacity that we have is AI. Because whether it's to create content or to screen molecules or to come up with new types of formulation, it gives us more speed. Then maybe we take a little bit less of time to make sure that the product is absolutely 110% perfect, because that's not the world we live in. But overall, it's technology that allows us to do that, both from the R&I side and from the marketing side.
You know, you saw that our CREAITECH studio, I mean, we create, I think, 500,000 pieces of content per month for all our brands, and the cost of one content is down 40%. So it's really... we have to all learn to master the tools, but it's really a new era, and I think for our labs, it's also working the same. And then we have, again, this fantastic asset of L'Oréal, which is what we call cascading, which is when a great technology is invented, we then roll it out in several brands. Take Melasyl, you would see it in several brands, but it's always the same.
So that also helps, you know, we have probably more brands jumping on one innovation than we used to, where it will trickle down more progressively. It's very, again, it's about acceleration. Donc, Charles-Louis Scotti, I will take a phone question, but please.
Okay. Charles-Louis Scotti, Kepler Cheuvreux. Two questions for me, please. The first one on Kering Beauty, and the second one on governance. On Kering Beauty, it seems that the new CEO of Coty is more open to discussing an early termination of the Gucci license, which matures in June 2028, if I'm not mistaken. Would you be interested in taking the license earlier? And if so, does it require an additional payment to Kering? And if you can also update us on the launch timeline of Kering licenses and also the medium-term potential for these brands and especially Gucci.
Mm-hmm.
The second question on governance. There would be a couple of board member appointment at the next AGM. There has been some market speculation regarding the Nestlé stake. And should we interpret the proposed appointment of two Nestlé representative for the next four years as a signal that there is no short-term exit from Nestlé? Thank you.
So on Kering Beauty, first of all, again, you know, it was, it was a very important and, very important deal for L'Oréal. That really puts us, apart from the rest in luxury beauty, and I'm very proud that we, could sign it, that, we could agree with, Luca de Meo and, and the, and the Kering management to, to make this deal. As you mentioned, it will be staged because, we will inherit... and I will ask Cyril, who hasn't spoken, to tell us a bit more where, what he and when he tends to take over, Creed and the others. As far as Gucci, it's really something that's being discussed between Kering and Coty, so I cannot comment on it.
The only thing I can say is that, you know, would we be happy to have it sooner? Clearly. Anyway, we'll take time to work on new projects, to refine the brand. So, we will need some time, but we'll be happy to, yeah, to get the brand sooner, and there's no extra in the deal for that. And as far as timings, we-
So, regarding the three other brands of the portfolio, which are Creed, Bottega, and Balenciaga, as soon as the non-compete studies are completed, we'll take over these brands. So it will be sometime during Q2. The potential of this brand is massive. Creed is today the number three player in collection fragrances, which, as you know, is the part of the core of the fragrance market, which grows the fastest. It's 23% of the fragrance market. It is growing at 3x the rate of regular fragrances. So, Creed has a lot of potential in this segment.
The brand today is, it's public information, but the brand is around EUR 350 million, and we think it can become quickly a EUR 1 billion brand. So that's for Creed. And regarding Bottega and Balenciaga, these brands are pretty tiny, pretty recent in the beauty market, and they launched their beauty at the end of 2024 for Bottega and beginning of 2025 for Balenciaga, and we think they have great potential. These are very solid fashion brands with very distinctive territories. Bottega, exceptional craftsmanship and sophistication, and Balenciaga, pretty disruptive high fashion statements. So we think these two brands will have great, great, great DNAs for beauty. And as I mentioned in my presentation, we have ambition for this brand. We have ambition to take them to a high level, just like we did with previous fashion licenses we took over.
We are not going to give you a number on that one. But,
But ambition.
Obviously, we wanna make it big. As I said, today, YSL Beauty is bigger in size than YSL Fashion. When you know the numbers for Gucci, so who knows? If we can do the same, it would be fantastic. As far as the board question and the proposed appointments for Nestlé board members, first of all, it corresponds to changes in the internal changes within Nestlé. So, there's Paul Bulcke will not be no longer the president of Nestlé, so they are proposing new board members. As far as their intention, they are the only ones that can answer that question. The only thing we can say is that they've been very loyal shareholders for 40 years, and we're very happy to have them as shareholders. They are contributing to the boards and to the discussion, so I hope and believe it will continue. So let's take the phone question.
Yes, sir. The first question is from Warren Ackerman of Barclays.
Yeah, good morning, Christophe, Nicolas. Warren Ackerman here at Barclays. I've got a couple for you as well. First one is on India. I think you said, Nicolas, that India was disappointing. Can you explain why and how you're changing India on the go-forward? The second one is on the Beauty Stimulus Plan. I think you said 2026 will be bigger than H2 2025. I think you said previously you wanted to add 300 basis points to the innovation rate in the second half, and Q3 was at 170 basis points. So did you get to the 300 basis points for the second half? And how much bigger will the stimulus plan be in 2026 versus second half of 2025? Just trying to understand the kind of scale of the step-up.
Do you see this as kind of a structural step-up in the 2027, then, has to be bigger than 2026? You know, so, so how do you think about that?
Mm-hmm.
Thanks.
I'll start first with the Beauty Stimulus Plan. First of all, I said that 26 would be bigger than 25. Didn't make any comments on halves or quarters, and I don't intend to do so because that would be a bit too accurate. What is clear is that we see that again, we need to stimulate the market. Then, when you put products on the market, some, you know, deliver less than expected, some much more, so we'll see what the future holds. But very clearly, all divisions, all categories are onto hyperdrive on innovations. And as far as 27, 28, you know, it's... We are, of course, already preparing the launch plan, so we intend to keep a good pace.
But I will not be more precise on that, not to give away too much information. As far as India is concerned, when I say that, I'm not satisfied, we had high single-digit growth, we did not gain a lot of market share, if any. And in the end, I think it's just because we are setting up a new team, a new organization. I took the board of directors to India at the end of October. We revised the strategic plan. We see where we have major growth opportunities. LDB, for example, is fantastic. We just launched CeraVe and La Roche-Posay. It's starting very well, but it's still very small.
We have great positions in some categories like hair care, where Garnier is number one, or hair color, where we have great products. But overall, we have to be more ambitious. We have a new CEO for L'Oréal India that was previously in charge of CPD Mexico, and he delivered a very strong performance there. We have new capacities. We've invested in our factories. We have announced the creation of a new tech center in Hyderabad. Let's say that today, India is roughly 1% of our turnover, which is very small. So, you know, it can only go up, and we have really put a lot of efforts, both financially and humanly, in terms of talents, to change gears in India.
When we see what we do in the Gulf countries and in Saudi Arabia, where we've got great teams, and it's doing phenomenal, and what we've done in Brazil and Mexico, I'm optimistic, ambitious, but we need to do better. It's very clear, and that's what we will start doing hopefully in 2026.
Thank you.
The next question, sir, is from Jeff Stent of BNP Paribas Exane.
Good morning. Just two questions, if I may. The first one is, you comment in the release that increasing the stake in Galderma will allow you to take part in the fast-growing market of aesthetics. If you could maybe just shed some color on what that 10% increment will really enable you to leverage in L'Oréal itself? And then the second one, just really a housekeeping question. More IT implementations coming, are you able to give us any color on what the likely impacts will be as we sort of progress through 2026? Thank you.
So, the increase of the stake in Galderma will give us two very concrete things. First, we will be proposing to the AGM of Galderma two board directors for L'Oréal, representing L'Oréal. And that will allow us to be truly part of the strategy, of the discussion, and both contribute but also continue to a learning process of this world of aesthetics and of the combination between topicals and injectables, et cetera. Of course, more—you know, on a more financial basis, it will allow it to consolidate the profits of Galderma by equivalence? How do you say that in English? By equivalence.
Then, as it brings us closer to Galderma, we will also want to expand our scientific partnership. We have one going on right now, where it's a lot about, about, you know, measurement of the performance of products through imaging, but I think we can do more. I will not, you know, go more into details, not to make any revelations, but that these are the three main, I would say, benefits from increasing our stakes to 20%. Before, we had every now and then, discussions or meetings with the management, but it was very loose, and we were not really in the game. Now we will be.
So now, regarding the—you mentioned the thing about the R&I. I just want to precise two things. That of course, this will have an impact both on the top line, because I think we've been mentioning before the different tools that are now in place. You mentioned, Nicolas, about CreaTech generating 500,000 assets every year now. You mentioned also the impact that this has on R&I, so speeding up the creation of new formulas.
Yeah.
But it will have also an impact on the bottom line, because definitely, what I can tell you is that, on a different part of the company, I mean, mainly, big functions, we are already seeing this impact. And I can tell you, for example, that, despite the solid growth of this year, the total headcounts working on the SG&A have been decreasing in 2025 compared to last year. And despite the integration of new teams, from the acquisition, we managed to decrease by 400 people. And this is-
Dear Christophe, I think Jeff's question was about the impact in basis points.
So-
of our IT transformation and the inventory movements, which we are not going to give today because we don't know it, but that was the question.
If this is the question, for 2025, I think you have now this, the information because, our dear, Eva, if you don't have the precise figures, we'll communicate to you. For 2026, difficult to assess right now. As I said before, you will know exactly what will be the impact quarter by quarter and, division by division. We are still waiting for the confirmation of the go live of the first countries. As I mentioned before, there is, Australia and the U.K. that are in the pipeline. This will be known, I think, in, probably one month, and at that time, we'll be able to give you those precise figures, don't worry, so that you can, reevaluate the performance on a quarterly basis.
Any other question?
Next question, sir, is from Guillaume Delmas of UBS.
Then we'll go back to the room. We have one question in the room.
Good morning, all.
Bonjour, Guillaume.
Thank you very much. Two questions and one quick point of clarification. So first question is on Europe. The region had a strong finish to the year. Wondering what drove this performance, and particularly, was it down to one particular division, or was it quite broad-based with all four divisions contributing? And I guess still on Europe, do you also see Europe as a region that could accelerate in 2026 versus 2025? Then my second question is on the contrasted performance between hair care and hair color, because one is growing double digits, the other one is pretty much flat. What do you attribute this gap in performance to? And as a clear leader, market leader in hair color, do you see scope to stimulate category growth in 2026?
And then the very last one, if I can switch it in, point of clarification on Q1. Nicolas, am I right to understand from your comments that your like-for-like sales growth should show some signs of sequential acceleration in Q1 versus Q4, given that Asia travel retail should be less dilutive and probably a better alignment between sell-in and sell-out in the quarter? Or once again, am I guilty of overinterpreting your comments? Thank you very much.
That's getting it. It's time we end these questions, getting very, very specific. No, but good questions. On Europe, the acceleration was broad-based. It was across all divisions. It was true for LDB in particular, because LDB was the division where, as you'd heard during the year, there was the biggest discrepancy between sell-in and sell-outs. And it eventually everywhere, but particularly in Europe, and it was also out of the sun care season , we had a good acceleration of LDB in Europe, but it was true for PPD in hair care. It was true for CPD overall with makeup, and it was true for luxury with great fragrance seasons.
As you've heard, we've got, you know, feminine fragrance one, two, three in, in Europe, which is frankly something the teams are very proud of. So it was, it was broad-based. As far as, as acceleration is concerned, Europe being our biggest region, the one with the highest market share, it's not where I expect the biggest share of the acceleration. But of, of course, as there's a new president of the European zone, and he wants to make an impression, he's there in the first row of the room, so I will also put some pressure on him. But, but more seriously, I expect the, the acceleration to be broad-based, but probably Europe will not be the number one, contributor.
On hair color, because it's, it's a tale of, of two cities between professional and, and mass, I will ask the two, the two gentlemen on my left to, give their perspective, and more importantly, what they intend to do to drive the growth, forward. So let's start with, maybe we'll start with our oldest division in hair color, with professional, with Omar, and then we'll ask Fabrice to come in.
When it comes to the professional hair color market worldwide, actually, it's moving at two speed. You know, we've seen on one hand, on the other hand, the mature market being soft, but on the other hand, a very good momentum in emerging markets. So, if I mention, you know, the emerging markets, India, Brazil, Middle East, professional is still a powerful symbol of aspiration, and we are successfully capturing there a massive new wave of first-time professional color hair user in these high potential territories. On the other hand, you know, in mature markets, the pace is softer, where we see possibly, you know, a more trade down to mass. And so what we are trying to do in professional hair color in mature market is to bring a lot of innovation.
You saw in my presentation, Redken Shades EQ, which is here, you know, to recruit the younger consumers. We are leveraging, you know, the innovation power on the most valorized formula, like Inoa. We are bringing also valorized service through education. So we are really trying, you know, to bring fresh energy and a lot of innovation to stimulate this more mature market. I just want to give you a last comment. You saw that in my presentation, that we are rebalancing our footprint. So overall, you know, I'm very confident in the mid- to long-term professional color acceleration, because with the acceleration of emerging and the more weight that it will have in our portfolio, it will create a higher dynamism to a professional category in the mid- to long run.
Fabrice?
Yeah, and from the CPD perspective, hair color is important category with CPD. You know, we are leader in this category. We play with our two big brands, with L'Oréal Paris and Garnier, and our strategy has always been to really cover the entire market needs from price points and from type of hair color. So you know that Garnier has a very accessible sachet offer in India that is growing, and at the same time, we're doing also great stimulating the market with Nutrisse. Like the latest example that we had in the U.S., where we did a very successful color animation with D'Amelio. But it's also a way to re-speak about hair color in a different way.
So it was a lot about advocacy, a lot about peer-to-peer connection, which really allowed this market to get stimulated in the U.S., and we go strongly on this market. The second part of stimulating the market is bringing new innovation and new gesture to the market. So a few years ago, L'Oréal Paris launched Magic Retouch. It was initially a service between two hair color, and today, Magic Retouch, after a few years, become one of the iconic product of hair color, a very complimentary service for consumers and adding a lot of new gesture and premiumization to this hair color market. So for CPD, it is an important market. We're stimulating it, first of all, with innovation, but most importantly, with more engagement with consumer at the lifetime of it.
On your final question, Guillaume, as you know, we don't give guidance, but the only thing I would say is that if we want to accelerate, you have to start early. We will do our best. We'll take one last question from the room before going to have a little cocktail. So please.
Thank you. It's Orlaith O'Connor from GuardCap Asset Management. A general question. Could you please just talk a bit about the changing dynamics in the skincare market, particularly as it relates to the dermacosmetics business? And just to help us maybe understand the market segmentation and the potential for cannibalization between those two businesses.
I may hand over to to Myriam. What I can say is that, all in all, there are many different dynamics in the skincare market. On the one hand, you've got people who want more science, more efficacy, other people want more safety, and ideally both. And that's, by the way, where dermatological beauty plays a very important role. But you also have a part of the market that wants, you know, products that look good, smell good, feel good, even if they don't deliver major skin transformation, and that's probably the part where we're a bit absent of, and that's why this Garnier launch is a—which is, again, a huge hit, and we're rolling out, is a good illustration of what we can do. And then there's...
the capacity to occupy different price points, and that's probably what the category, and as I've shown it, where we have the wider breadth of price points and our capacity to position each of our brands, the Biotherm, the Kiehl's, the Lancôme, the Helena Rubinstein, on all these price brackets, is probably one also of the keys to doing better in skincare. But maybe I think because it's true that this longevity trend is changing, you know, people's perception of skincare and how they can consume, maybe you want to say a word to Myriam, on that?
On longevity?
Yeah, on skincare.
Oh, yeah, on skincare-
How is the-
How to structure the answer.
Say a few words about SkinCeuticals.
Yeah. On skincare, what I want to say is consumers are looking for performance and trust, whether they're looking for anti-aging performance or answers to the specific skin problem they can have, and dermatology is well placed to deliver those benefits. What we see is that effectively the prescription and the role of dermatologists and of pharmacists to drive the trust is absolutely critical, and this is being reinforced with the recent boom of aesthetics. I'd like to quote one example to explain the role of skincare in the most advanced aesthetic performance: it works in complement with aesthetics.
If you take the latest disruption that is happening with, for instance, the GLP-1 that drives fabulous sagging on the skin, that requires fabulous is not maybe the right word, but a very important impact on the skin. Dramatic, that's what I wanted to say. Well, the most advanced skincare can impact, it has been proven this year, and that was a massive achievement, that through cosmetics, you can impact the. You can correct part of the impact of those medicines. So the medical part with on one side, adjunctive therapy, complementing drug or on helping to sort the pathology is critical and driving trust, which explain why skincare is very big in the market. It's about 80% of the total dermo market.
I will end just to conclude, to talk a little bit about the future and AI. We see the rise of LLMs and how people now are asking questions to these models. And here, the quality of our content, the science we have, the publications that our brands are putting out there, are making our brands pop up because these LLMs need deep and rich content. And that's in the end gonna be very positive, and if you, I'm sure if you type, as I did, "What are the safest skincare brands on Perplexity?" The odds is that you're gonna find La Roche-Posay and CeraVe popping up because there are all the publications plus the support of dermatologists that are making a difference.
So that's gonna be, I think, an important game changer in skincare. This being said, thank you for staying so long with us, and we'll be joining you for a little cocktail, and you know where. Thank you so much. Have a great day.