I hope that you can see us and hear us well, and we'll project even if we're wearing these great microphones to make sure that nothing is missed. Let's get started.
Okay, from my side, I'm pretty happy to be here in the U.S. I'm very happy to welcome all of you here in this market, which is, as you know, the biggest market worldwide and, of course, the biggest also subsidiary of L'Oréal USA. It's quite unusual because usually I'm the one asking questions to David, and today is the contrary. I will do my best to answer your questions regarding, I think, most of the questions that you have in your mind.
Great. I like the role reversal. The first question, and I think this is one on everybody's mind because we hear this a lot, is considering the current state of consumer health and spending, do you expect overall beauty market to deviate from the previously projected plus 4% in 2026 and the medium term? If so, what factors might influence this change, e.g., categories, markets, et cetera?
Okay, first, when I look at how the market has been in 2025, what we have been seeing is, of course, a gradual acceleration. That is important because we started with a very soft Q1, and then the next quarters have been more dynamic, and we hope that the first quarter should be even more dynamic with the high season starting very soon. Of course, we are finishing right now the Black Friday, and Cyber Monday is just today, but we are still in front of us the big Christmas period, which is always quite important for our business.
Now, regarding 2026, of course, it's by far too early to say anything about what could be the market next year, but at least this gradual increase of the market may lead probably at an exit rate in Q4 at around 4%, maybe a little bit more, which is quite interesting because it's the kind of growth that we have seen in the long-term beauty market, at least on the worldwide growth.
Right now, we have some positive signs coming from all the regions, first because the U.S. and China have been accelerating recently, and since the very start of the year, it has been quite steadily improving quarter after quarter, and the latest news we have both from the U.S. but also for China post-11/11 are quite encouraging.
Europe is still robust, with growth that is above the pre-COVID level. That is always a very positive sign when we think in terms of health of the market. Last, of course, emerging markets are still driving the growth. Sub-Saharan Africa is still at a quite high level of growth. Latin America, as you know, has been a bit decelerating, but it is still far above the growth that we see in Western markets.
When I look a bit further, when I think in terms of what are the long-term drivers, I think that, first of all, the emerging markets will be a key driver for growth, for sure, because we still have in front of us middle classes that will increase quite significantly in big economies like, of course, India, but that is not the only one.
We've seen, for example, recently that the perspective of Gulf countries is very interesting as well with very high growth. All this is driven with the addition of new young consumers that are extremely digital, and they still demonstrate a very high appetite on beauty. Whenever we look at key indicators like the size of beauty comments in YouTube, it's still proving that the appetite is there. Even in the U.S., this country, we consider the U.S. as a growing country because we still see new consumers joining. Population is increasing, but also the new generation, Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha, they are even more appetite for our beauty products.
As for the categories, it's very difficult to do predictions, and I think that you will be showing to all of you a very interesting chart showing how the different categories have been evolving year after year, and it's very unpredictable. The good news is that in a group like L'Oréal, a very multipolar model, we are in all categories in all regions, so we are capable to grasp those opportunities. If tomorrow it's makeup, we are fully loaded in the U.S. If it's fragrance, we have all the waypoints to grasp the growth.
In any case, for the long term, what is sure is that skincare, because as you know, is the bigger category worldwide and also at L'Oréal, nearly 40%, will still be a key driver for sustainable growth. This is for sure.
Yeah, I know the comment on categories within the question is an important one. I don't know, Christophe, if you think about the world today, there are markets that have a booming, let's say, age 50-plus consumer and markets that are predictably youthful. Do you have any thoughts on how the world evolves in terms of differences in those markets and how that plays into the dynamism of the beauty business?
What we've seen at least is that, of course, each region has its own strength. We know that fragrances are the biggest share in Europe. We know that in the U.S., it has been mainly makeup driving in terms of size the market, and of course, in Asia, it's absolutely skincare. What is interesting is that we have some long-term trends. We will probably speak later about fragrances. We see that the appetite for fragrance is not only something that is specific to one or two regions. It is visible also in Asia, and that's pretty new. The same for the premium haircare. It's something that we've tested with our Consumer Products Division in geographies like Brazil.
The learning from this market is that the appetite from consumers into more premium haircare with addition in terms of innovation is something that in all geographies we can go and we can grasp more value. We have been very successful in rolling those innovations into all the geographies.
Something I read, actually, I think it was just this morning, you mentioned fragrance, but couture, and you mentioned the U.S. being a growth country, but in the world of couture, they actually qualify the United States as a developing country because they consider that, and I'm speaking about the fashion, but they consider the U.S. consumer to be emerging in this world of embracing fashion in the way that maybe Europe had done some time ago.
You give me the opportunity to remind something very important when it comes to luxury. You know that the biggest part of the affluent consumers are here in this market. When you look at the growth of the luxe business in the long period, over the last 10 years, 60% of the growth has been generated in EUR terms in this country. That is also very important to keep in mind where the business is. We speak about consumers, that is important, but what is important equally is the value. Where is the value? That is why we will keep, of course, investing into this very strategic market because this is a market of affluent consumers in a hard currency.
I feel some added pressure.
No pressure, David.
I'm going to move to the next one. Christophe, what do you consider to be the biggest transformation in the beauty industry over the past five years? Looking ahead, what do you predict will be the most significant change in the next five years? That's not an easy one.
Okay. Definitely, I strongly believe that the biggest transformation that we've seen in the past five years is, of course, the importance and increasing importance of digital as a whole, and more specifically the e-commerce when it comes to the sales. This is a long-term trend. It's not new because it started already many years ago, mainly in China. Since e-commerce has been grasping share in the beauty business every single year, it's something that we see in all countries across all the regions, and still today.
Now, when we look at some specific countries and we see the size of e-commerce within the total beauty, we can easily predict that this long-term trend will still be visible, and including in very mature markets like, I don't know, the U.S. and then Western countries, it's still the same.
It is not only about e-commerce, it is about the digital because everything starts with the way you activate consumers, and there this is a dramatic change. That is probably where L'Oréal has been at the edge of those technologies. Still today, I can tell you that the biggest trunk of growth is generated thanks to the e-commerce, proving that we are still at the edge when it comes to how to activate consumers. The game now is much more sophisticated because you have a very different nature of e-commerce platform. It comes from e-commerce, social platform, quick commerce. There is a long string of innovations, by the way, that are still coming into the market. Every time our teams have been extremely sharp in identifying those new techniques and investing into them to make sure that we can lead and keep the edge that we have.
Latest one being, for example, the social network with platforms like TikTok, and it's always a new game with new algorithms, and therefore mastering those new platforms is critical for us to keep ahead of the pack. When I look ahead, let's say for the next five years, for me, the most significant change will probably be the deeper integration between science and the technology. And this for what? For more personalized beauty solutions. We are entering an era of drastic changes. I mean, I think we all can acknowledge that technologies is moving and innovation is moving extremely fast, probably every day a bit faster. And this gives, of course, on one side a lot of challenges, but many opportunities for the future.
That's what our teams are trying now to catch because I do believe that in that new game, the strength of L'Oréal is even bigger because it will be a lot about AI. If you want to be strong with AI, you need data. If there is one beauty group that has a considerable amount of data still bringing every day a little bit more, it's L'Oréal Group. That's why we've been able, and probably we'll come back to this point later, but internally we are developing tools that are, for me, state of the art today that will influence a lot the way we operate inside, but also the way we activate consumers because that's extremely important. Besides AI and data, it's, of course, the new frontier of the longevity.
You know that the number of people over 60 will dramatically increase in the coming years. I think we're speaking about an addition of 250 million people that will fall into this range. It is clear today that life expectancy will increase. People want to be in good shape for the long term, and this comes with, of course, new products to cope with those requests. We will keep investing in making our data stronger, therefore powering off AI with this data, and keep investing in research to catch those innovations coming in this field of longevity.
Okay. I think you answered the question inside the question, which was L'Oréal's readiness to take on the world that is going to form over the coming five years. I would only add one point, which is the data piece is, the data governance is so important in the whole scheme of how you prepare to leverage AI. I think the group embarked on the data revolution pretty early on. All these years later, we were either very smart or very lucky or both, but we're in the right place.
Oh, that's important. I want to stress it because, of course, those are things that are not visible from the outside. There is a true governance of data inside the group. It is extremely well structured. It's a team of more than 800 people in the group, so it's a big amount of people. Of course, within this data team, you will find all the different métiers. It starts with those in charge of structuring the data, those in charge of working the analytics. I think that here one of the key countries mastering the game is the U.S., by the way. I'm sure that part of the presentation in the coming days will be to show the output of this know-how.
Shifting gears a little bit, many of our major competitors are facing challenges to consistently deliver strong growth. What are the strategies and safeguards that allow L'Oréal to maintain its growth trajectory? Could you shed some light on which competitors have managed to gain share from L'Oréal? What factors do you believe contributed to that shift?
What I can tell is that L'Oréal growth strategies and safeguards have been built already a long time ago. This is a group that was born more than one century ago, and for many years we've been showing and proving that we have what is needed to keep gaining market share and grow. First and probably foremost in the demonstration is, of course, the growth mindset. We speak a lot about product, we speak a lot about technology, but at the end, behind everything we do, it's about people and developing a strong culture.
I think that if there is something that needs to be more publicized, it is this mindset, this competition mindset, this growth mindset of the people at L'Oréal. It's really embedded into the way to operate.
You will have the opportunity to discuss with some of our managers, and you will see that when you look at their eyes, when they look at the spirit they operate, it's a lot about, "I want to win the battle. I'm in charge of a brand. I want to win the battle in my own territory. In this category, I want to win the battle." Many of us, at least those that have been for a while at L'Oréal and you know pretty well, we've been educated in that spirit. We love competition, and this is extremely important to understand the strength of our results. At the center of this ambition of growth, of course, we have the model of L'Oréal, which is a multipolar model, and that makes also the group extremely resilient.
I won't come back too much on this point because I think you all know, but L'Oréal is present in all categories, in all channels, in all regions. That is very important because whatever happens in one of those regions' categories, etc., we are capable to offset. The road is bumpy, and every time there is a bump, we are capable to compensate, to mitigate a weakness in a region with strength in another one, a weakness in a category with a strength in another one, and therefore capable to produce what is our objective, which is sustainable and profitable growth for the long term.
I think that it's difficult to see L'Oréal failing at achieving the growth both on the top line and the bottom line, and that's our commitment for ourselves first, but of course for the investors.
To ensure this model, what is very important also is to understand that you need, on one side, to leverage the strength of a big group that is developing more than $50 billion in sales, but at the same time to keep this agility, this entrepreneurial spirit. This is also quite visible within the group because at the end, when you look at the portfolio of our brands, you will see many small brands with a very strong entrepreneurial spirit because they need to survive and they need to gain market shares also. We have, on top of that, of course, and this you know pretty well, this incredible portfolio of more than 30 international brands, 37 as of today.
We have, as you know, the power of our research and innovation that is in size, in volume of spend, three times bigger than the next three competitors. That is why we are capable also to invest in understanding what will be the beauty not tomorrow, but in 5, 10, 20 years from now. That is very useful as well. Something that you know pretty well also is that to achieve all that, we have the strength of our financials with a strong balance sheet, with a model in terms of P&L that is extremely future-proof for investors.
There was a part about market share, Christophe, which we obsess about here and there, as you know. Today, I think when you think about, by and large, the large groups out there or not, the smaller companies and the upstarts as well, do you have a sense where we're winning, where we're losing, and if there's a particular place of strength or of opportunity?
First, let's be fact-based. When I look at the growth of L'Oréal, at the end of September, the growth adjusted was at 3.7% in a market that is lower than that. When I look, because now it's public information, at the result of the top 30 competitors, at least those that are listed, I see a growth of plus 0.6% excluding L'Oréal, meaning that at least on average, compared to all the big competitors, we are doing much better. The fact is that, of course, there are some other players, probably much smaller, the indie brands, for example. Their territory is mainly on the e-commerce. They are surfing on a market that is growing. This is extremely important because those brands are also bringing all the innovation that we see, or at least part of it, in all key markets.
What we need is, of course, to be ahead of the pack for the big players, but being agile as well to compete with those indie brands. That's the difficulty of today's world, probably, to manage this complexity of being strong among the strong, but being strong also among the very agile and very small players.
All right. Turning to some geographies, this particular question seems to be about the U.S. In the U.S., what drove the discrepancy between adjusted sell-in and sell-out in the third quarter? Are you confident that the steady recovery we have seen since the start of this year will continue?
Okay. I just want to remind first one thing is that when it comes to the reading of our results, it's very important not to focus too much on one single quarter. It's very important to look at the growth on a cumulative basis, even more in this period where L'Oréal is facing a big IT transformation. It's a bit difficult because sometimes the reading of the figures is a bit more complicated than before. That's why probably we need to keep bringing more explanation because we've been a lot speaking about the transformation of our key IT platform, moving into the SAP for Anna, SAP from 20 platforms in only one. It's a major change management within the group.
That's the key battle today in terms of IT transformation. The truth is not the only one.
Just we'll share with you one concrete example is that a prerequisite for the implementation of this new SAP is the change of the warehouse management system in all RDCs around the world. That makes it another layer of complexities. You will be launching, I mean, the go-live of SAP in the U.S., for example, is next year in the first half. The truth is that you've been already facing here in the U.S., right, the implementation of this new warehouse system in your different DCs. It has been impacting your business on a monthly basis this year and next year again with this big project called NEO. Now, coming back to the figures. First, what I see over the different periods is a market that is growing. The market, I think, is a bit more than plus 2% and has been steadily accelerating over the quarters.
If I'm not wrong, the first quarter was flat. The second quarter showed +2%. The third is at +4%, and I think we still see a further acceleration in the last quarter, proving that the market is catching up. That is very healthy. When it comes to L'Oréal, on one side, we have a sell-in at the end of this period, nine months, that is growing at +3%, which is 1.5 times the growth of the market. We have seen all divisions outperforming their own market. Congratulations, David. It is even more visible in the Consumer Products Division, which I do believe that, frankly speaking, the overperformance has been really incredible. Congrats to those teams.
When I look at the same time, the sell-out, so really the real consumption, if I'm not wrong, the sell-out is at +3%, so perfectly aligned with the sell-in. If there are some questions, I want to say that today there is no inventory issue in the U.S. This is something that we monitor every single month by division, by key player. No issue for that. As for the rest of the year, we will see. The market expects to remain quite robust. Also, as I said before, there are still some big events that are quite important, the holiday season, but usually it is mainly towards some specific categories like fragrances, where, as you know, we are strongly overperforming. I am quite reassured for the last months of the year.
What I expect, of course, on L'Oréal USA is to overperform the market, but no pressure, David.
Thank you, Christophe. I mean, there's the terminology we often hear is this question of recovery, but I would just maybe remind that the first quarter in the U.S. was the new administration when they took office at that time. There was a lot of, I'd say, confusion in the market and particularly amongst consumers, especially around immigration policy, around tariffs, around inflation. It was not a typical quarter, that's for sure. The acceleration from that quarter has been, I think, rather extraordinary.
I think I'll share more specific numbers tomorrow, so I don't want to spoil things, but it gets even better as the quarters go on, which I think is a good sign. I also saw the figures. These are broad holiday figures, but Black Friday e-commerce was plus 9%-10% in the U.S.
Cyber Monday around 6 so far, and it's only 6 o'clock. I know my wife is going to be shopping for another six hours. Lots more business to be done. I think despite the fact that we read a lot of headlines about the consumer, one way or another, she continues to be interested in buying products, in particular beauty products. If we could flip to the other side of the world, China, which I know a lot less about, this one is going to be on you. We have the exact same question. Is the gradual acceleration since the start of the year sustainable and a sign of a broader recovery? Has 11/11 been in line with this trend of recovery? What will it take for CPD to start outperforming the market in China?
Okay. As I said before, what we've seen in China is quite positive because after a difficult second half last year, we've seen steadily the market increasing, gaining strength quarter after quarter. Especially in the third quarter, we estimate the market growing at around 3%. For me, it's a very positive sign because it proves that this market is back on track. We're still very prudent because things can turn very quickly, but at least it's a very positive sign. We are, of course, cautious but very optimistic for the end of the year also because, as you rightly remind us, 11/11 now is finished. We know how things have been moving, and the reaction to this very important promotional activity was pretty good. The total gross, the GMV, as we said, has been up slightly, confirming that the conditions are easing in China.
What is, of course, extremely important for us is that L'Oréal, once again, has been overperforming the market. Big kudos to our teams there because our brands have been doing extremely well with L'Oréal Paris, of course, leading the market. We have three brands in the top five because Lancôme and L'Oréal Paris are respectively third and fifth, so they've been gaining one rank as well. Good performance for 11/11. It is true that CPD has been slightly underperforming in this market.
The competition is very fierce, but at the end, I always remind that in our view, competition is even more complicated in markets like the U.S. or Japan. It is true that local brands have been gaining, I will say, in different aspects of the business. They are more innovative than before.
It proves that we are still to keep agile to bring more innovation and to be very relevant in the Chinese market. Also because the market has been moving slightly with new players. Douyin is still gaining traction in China and particularly trying to activate consumers that are in the tier three, four, and five cities. The truth, when I look at the result of 11/11, something has changed because I've seen the selective brands, the luxury market growing much faster than the mass market.
Mass market, we estimate that the 11/11 operation was flat. What we have seen is, for example, some Chinese competitors that were gaining market share have been losing traction during 11/11, proving that the game is not over.
What needs now to be done for CPD is first alignment on the distribution, so expand on Douyin because that's today a channel where you need to be and you need to win if you want to be at the top of the game. Second is bring more innovation and faster. There is an issue of speed that we are coping now with a recent decision that we decided to put a new innovation center in China. It will be a Chinese innovation center for China first, but probably also for the rest of the world. Something like we did probably a little bit less than 10 years ago with Korea. The second biggest Chinese innovation center will be now based in Shanghai. Of course, bring a solid pipe of innovation.
I know that the teams in CPD, they have a new set of weapons in terms of innovation. I will not release the future product, but the division is well equipped to keep winning the battles in China, this for sure.
Okay. All right. We're going to stay in that part of the world because I'm sure there's more curiosity. Thinking about the longer term in China, what do you see as the sustainable market growth over the next 5 to 10 years and what will be driving that? At the same time, where do you see the main white spaces for the group, especially when it comes to the city tiers that you just mentioned? Can we support that with our operations and supply chain as those second, third, fourth, fifth tier cities come on board?
Okay.
Of course, nobody has a crystal ball, and it's very difficult to assess what will be the growth, at least short term, in China. Still, we've been saying and claiming that for a while. We still believe that the next China is still China because of the size of the market, basically, and because we know that today there are key drivers for the long-term growth. I don't know if it will be visible as soon as in one year or two or five from now, but we know that the middle class is still emerging. There are probably around 160 million people that will join the pool of people that can buy our brands, and this by 2030. 2030 is in five years from now. 160 million that should be able to buy one of our products.
The second important point is that probably China is one of the most knowledgeable markets. The consumer really loves beauty, and they are more and more educated, and this plays to our strength because when you have strong research, strong innovation, and those capabilities, it means that they are very receptive when you bring the right innovation with the relevant brands. We still believe that, of course, there are some white spaces because today we reach probably not probably, though we have quite precise estimates, but a little bit less than 100 million in this pool of 400 million.
Today we are reaching just 25% of the addressable market. Within that 100 million, we are reaching only 20 million when it comes to our luxe division. There is a lot to do because we are just rolling out some of the recent acquisitions.
As you know, there are new acquisitions also to come. Definitely, we have a lot of consumers now to attract in the coming five years in China. When it comes to the readiness of our supply chain here, definitely we are by far the strongest player in China. We have strong capabilities on the industrial side and a network of distribution centers and warehouses with lately the state of the art when it comes to distribution. We have invested into a new facility, a new fulfillment center in Suzhou. We opened it in 2024. Those fully automated logistics centers that can cope with a huge increase of volumes. Lately, we just finished 11/11. I think we have now shipped more than 20 million parcels in a couple of weeks. If you do not have those logistics capabilities, it is very difficult to win.
On the supply chain, we are fully ready, this for sure. On top of that, we are investing for the future because through Bold, we have been investing through two funds. We have one that is called Macy Feng and another one that is our Bold Venture Capital arm. We are also investing, with minority shares in different parts of this very dynamic ecosystem of beauty in China. It is not only brands like fragrance brands, but also we have invested in some ingredients companies. There is a startup ecosystem today in China that is extremely active. This is part of the strength also for the long-term development in China.
Okay. All right. We're going to shift gears to the divisions and start with the professional division. The question is, professional haircare has been an exceptionally strong category for L'Oréal, very significantly boosting overall performances. How much of this growth comes from L'Oréal-specific initiatives versus broader market trends, and how sustainable is that?
First, regarding the growth drivers, I think it's both. Of course, it's L'Oréal initiatives on one side, but also new broader market trends that have been, of course, important for this strong growth in this division. Let's start with the market trends. First, we see that there has been an increased scrutiny and interest from consumers, and this is quite broad-based on hair. To make it simple, our professional product division is acting on hair on one side and color on the other side. If there is a market that has been really extremely dynamic, it's a worldwide trend, it is haircare. It has been driven by a premiumization of the market, and this premiumization has been, to be very honest, mainly driven by our brands.
This is really something that you see in PPD through the marketing and the strength of a brand named Kérastase. It's through everywhere, and the growth has been quite extraordinary also in the U.S., by the way. As I was saying before, it's not specific to PPD. It has been also driven by our consumer division with brands like L'Oréal. Second is more focus from those consumers, whatever the regions, on the hair and the scalp. The hairstyle also has been changing.
What we observe is longer hairstyles. Of course, longer hair means more shampoo every time you take a shower. Also, a market that is complexifying because if I take just this market, you know that the ethnic groups in many countries are evolving very quickly.
If I take the U.S., for example, the share of Latinos is increasing, and those consumers are more into makeup, but also hair and fragrances. The type of hair has been also so, meaning that we have plenty of new segments that we are today addressing and probably with less focus in the past. Coming to our own initiatives, it's true that PPD, I won't list all of them, but you know perfectly well that we have a strong portfolio. We are even complementing this portfolio with the recent acquisition of Color Wow that will respond to this premiumization trend and very strong innovations. Kérastase, for example, the success of our Kérastase Gloss Absolute has been incredible here in the U.S., but also in China, in all big geographies.
Something that has been at the heart of the strategy of the division is this omnichannel strategy. The success of PPD has been also the capability to shift part of the focus not only in hair salons, but also into the e-commerce world. Today, just for information, 38% of the sales of PPD is done in e-com. Huge. That is all. I think those are the key drivers of the success of the division.
Yeah. Maybe I'll augment one point you made, which is the last part of the question was, how sustainable is it? I think you commented earlier on the generations, on the interest of the consumer in all things hair and all things scalp. I'd just add one further point, and maybe in particular for the U.S., but the sustainability also comes from the powerful network of hairdressers, hair salons, and the ability to activate your brands and products through those very influential people, which is in and of itself an engine of perpetual growth when it comes to the introduction of innovation and products and keeping consumers engaged.
I don't want to spoil the presentation that you will see tomorrow, but if there is a market that has been really, truly visionary in mastering the art of catching the big shift of distribution, the way the market operates in the U.S., is the Professional Product Division with the salon-centric on one side, but also with the e-commerce on the other side. I don't say much more because you will have the head of the division showing what they've been able to do in this market.
Another question also linked a bit to categories and divisions is fragrances. The observation or the question is, fragrances appear to be slowing, although L'Oréal continues to see strong growth. Where do you see fragrance growth in the midterm?
I know that many of you have been raising the question many times in the past, so I do not want to be too detailed, but this is a success story that is incredible because it has been growing double-digit for many years now. Probably today is a bit decelerating, but it is still one of the fastest-growing categories that we have in beauty. I think that in that field, L'Oréal performance has been quite incredible because we are growing at twice the speed of the market. This is supported, as you know, by one-of-a-kind portfolio of brands that, as you know, we are continuing to develop and to build.
What we observe is within the different brands, the couture brands have been extremely agile to catch this growth. The stellar growth of brands like Prada, Valentino, or even Yves Saint Laurent are there to prove this trend.
As Cyril has been demonstrated, Cyril is the Head of our Luxury Division. I don't know, some of you probably attended the Talk Beauty that he did last week. Definitely, all the launches that the division has been putting on the market recently have been an extraordinary hit. Here, I'm sure you see already in the shops the new fragrance of Prada, Paradigme, or the new fragrance from Miu Miu. They are all doing a very good start. I'm sure that this will be very visible during the holiday season.
ÑFor the midterm potential, it's still huge because this is a category that is still largely underpenetrated compared to other categories. We have new consumer cohorts joining the pool of consumers, mainly from the very young generation. The Gen Alpha are very avid of fragrances.
Something that is also now pretty visible is the rise of this category not only in emerging markets, but mainly in Asia. Mainly North Asia, that's quite new because to see Chinese going in dedicated boutiques to buy fragrances, this is quite new. We believe it will be a sustainable growth driver on the long term.
Now, it's obvious, I think, for those of us here that most of these fragrance products are coming from Europe. Any thoughts or observations on how we continue to manage that from the standpoint of tariffs, pricing, anything else that might impact the fragrance business?
This is a headwind, of course. For the time being, we are able to mitigate the risk. It comes with, of course, the pricing power and therefore putting a small price increase whenever it's necessary to cope with that. For the time being, it's a headwind, but it's still manageable. Okay? Despite those tariffs, for example, that impact our business here in the U.S. in terms of cost, for the time being, still, we have decided to keep the production in France because the productivity gain that we can keep having in our factories can cope with this headwind.
Shifting to the stimulus plan, the beauty stimulus plan, the question is, can you give us an update on the beauty stimulus plan and what did we learn from it in 2025? Will the 2026 vintage of the beauty stimulus plan be similar in terms of growth contribution?
Stimulus plan means what? Means that it's a very important decision that we took at the end of 2024 when we understood that the market will become more difficult, that there was the need to activate the market. It was obvious that we needed to bring more innovation, more launches, more new into the market. All brands, all divisions have been working to accelerate the rhythm of launches. This was the objective, was really to wake up the market. I have to say, thank God we did it because we have been measuring the impact in the growth of each of our quarters, so steadily improving the growth. T
he last one, Q4, I think will be even stronger. That's thanks to the launches that we did this year. I think this is not a one-off. Definitely, we will do the same in 2026.
I think the objective is even to do better in terms of launches. As you know, it's not equally distributed by category because some categories, they need even more launches. I'm thinking about makeup or even fragrances, probably not as much in skincare, but still, that's probably a new, yes, a new metric that we are following in a much more detailed way by country, by division, by brand. I think it's crucial in today's landscape of beauty.
I take away that the 2026 vintage will be as good as the 2025, if not better. That's my.
At least.
Reading between the pipeline. We have Alexis, the Head of Consumer Division, with us here, and he will confirm to you that in his division, there is a very solid plan for 2026, stronger than the one in 2025. Believe me, it is the case in all divisions.
It's good news.
Let's speak a little bit about channels and channel strategy. We know channels have been evolving and changing pretty dynamically in the last years. You already asked the question about that. How is the significant channel shift impacting the business, i.e., Amazon, Douyin? Often, some of these are considered lower margin channels, but faster growing. Is there a gross margin impact? Are we actively gaining market share online?
It's a good question because when you look at the evolution of beauty, actually, the evolution of beauty is the evolution of our channels. When you look back 30 years ago, look how much the business has been disrupted by those new channels emerging, moving from department stores, for example, here in the U.S., into specialty stores and now into the online.
This has happened just in the last 20 years. The change has been really dramatic. I come back to what I was commenting before is that, for example, a group like L'Oréal today, our e-comm business is approaching 30% of our global sales. 30% is huge, it's massive. The model of L'Oréal has been always very simple. We want to be where the consumers want to buy.
If the consumer is willing to buy more on e-commerce, we will follow the consumer. We are quite agnostic. Our strong belief is that the winning model is the Opus O model. We need to have a strong offline together with a strong online and having a well-aligned strategy between those two big channels. That is why over the past few years, we have been investing in both of them, but of course, following the trend of this increasing weight of e-commerce. It allows us to reach more consumers in a faster way. This is even more important when you want to be a winner in emerging markets.
In all emerging markets, we see the weight of e-commerce increasing much faster than in mature markets because I don't know if I think about India, but also Brazil or even China in the past, it's impossible to build very quickly brick-and-mortar distribution in those countries. If you want to reach the masses quickly, e-comm. You raised the question of gross margin impact. This shift is not bad because, of course, e-commerce, as everybody knows, is accretive to our margins. It is welcome.
The challenge, of course, because all the sub-channels in e-comm are not the same, it will be to balance those that are gaining growth and those that are more profitable. We're quite good at managing this balance.
You mentioned gross margins. We'll stick with the P&L and move a few lines down. This is an interesting one. We have two opposing questions on A&P. One assumes that L'Oréal's share of voice exceeds share of market. The ratio would be 22% 14%, and that the group is overspending on A&P. The other wonders whether our 20%-40% basis point margin objective will be harder to achieve given the rising cost of growth and the tariff headwinds.
Okay. If we speak about the P&L, this is my favorite topic, of course. I want just to frame what is the ambition, and I repeat clear and loud. Our ambition is very simple. It's to deliver a plus 20% or 30% basis points of margin improvement every single year. I think that we have a long track record in that sense. Believe me, all the team management at L'Oréal is really committed to this, and we will continue producing that kind of results. There are plenty of levers to improve the margin.
As you know, we really stick to our discipline when it comes to the gross margin, making sure that we can mitigate all the headwinds, including tariffs, whenever it's possible. We have still space for further improvement.
I go directly into the A&P discussion because I think this is a very interesting one. On one side, it's true that this is the single largest cost that we have in the P&L at nearly 32%. We still consider that this is crucial to fuel the growth of beauty and of our brands. Therefore, we will keep investing, of course, heavily into that area. Maybe in the future, at least in the near-term future, it's quite unlikely that we will go much further in this percentage in the P&L because we start to see now the benefit of some of the tools that we've been implementing.
There is one that is widely known, I guess, from all of you, the Beta IQ, so the proprietary tool that we have been developing. There will be a very beautiful demonstration from your teams in the next day.
I will not go into the detail. Definitely, this is bringing an opportunity to improve the return of investment by 10%-15%. It is proven we have those results here in L'Oréal USA. It gives us the possibility for the same amount of money to reach more consumers. That is why I think there is no need to invest more than the current amount. Last, are we spending too much on A&P? No. No, because, as you know, we see so many areas and opportunities for growth that we will still invest. The importance is to make this beauty market even bigger. We are here not only to gain market share, but also to increase the pie.
We will keep investing in growth. For that, we will keep putting a big amount of money in the market to sustain the growth.
I'm going to, in the interest of time, because I think you answered a little bit of the question around L'Oréal systems, IT infrastructure, data management, I think I'm going to just jump so we don't run out of time to the M&A question, which is L'Oréal appears to be increasing its M&A activity. It's now more challenging. Is it? Apologies. Is it now more challenging or expensive to achieve success with acquisitions, especially with younger consumers being less brand loyal? In which part of your portfolio do you currently see gaps, including in China, where you recently took stakes in Chando and Lan?
Yes. Priority when we speak about growth is, of course, organic growth. And so keep fueling the growth of our current brands. But you know the history of L'Oréal. It is about acquisitions. Among our 37 international brands, only three have been created by L'Oréal. So M&A is still, of course, a key element of the growth strategy of the group. We are quite strict when it comes to designing the criteria to bring a new brand into the portfolio. It has to fit the strategy of the division.
We need to see brands that are potentially, of course, accretive and not only on the top line, but on the bottom line on the long term. I think part of the question was about, is it more challenging or expensive? No. Maybe it requires a bigger amount of capital.
Look at the success of brands that we recently bring into our portfolio. Valentino, from EUR 50 million when we bring the brand inside the group, now we have sales that are over EUR 600 million. If I look at Prada from a little bit less than EUR 100 million, in a few years, we bring this brand at more than EUR 500 million in three years. Because of the size of the beauty market that now is increasing, it brings for those brands that have the right equity that are relevant with the consumers of today, the possibility to grow even faster.
We have plenty of examples that can prove that. Maybe it cost a little bit more at the acquisition, but the potential, the business plan that we draw behind is much bigger also. Do not worry, it's still a pretty good deal.
Of course, the difficulty is to spot the right brand and assessing if the brand has a true capability to become international.
Maybe I stick with the theme then and talk about capital allocation.
Yes.
You just spoke about M&A and the interest of the group to continue and the belief that there's opportunity. Can you confirm also that L'Oréal remains committed and eager to deploy capital strategically across other areas of the business, like R&I, operations, marketing, digital?
Absolutely. Absolutely, because those are the drivers of success of tomorrow. It is true in R&I where we're still investing a lot in this area. It is critical for the long term. By the way, it is the only line of the P&L that has never decreased over the past, I don't know, 20 years. It is a privilege to work in research because they know that they will have a constant flow of increase of money. I think you will see with your own eyes the facilities that you have, by the way, my dear David, here in the U.S., that are state-of-the-art in terms of R&I and strong capabilities there. We are still investing, as you know, in industrial capabilities.
We are still investing in the latest technologies when it comes to logistics as well. Example, the one I was mentioning before in China.
I think it's balancing rightly the investment. I could spend hours speaking about, of course, data and AI because those are capabilities that are extremely important for the growth of tomorrow.
There is at least one or two questions that we will not be discussing this week. I am going to pick them out of the back, which is how far would you be comfortable taking financial leverage in the event of exceptional M&A or buyback opportunities?
That is a very hard question. Before speaking about leverage, I just want to reassess what is the situation today at L'Oréal. We have a strong balance sheet. This is extremely robust, a gearing ratio that stands at 13%. The financial leverage is quite well below 0.5. When you add on top of that our financial investment, like the one that we have in Sanofi, it's an EUR 8 billion stake. We have really the power today to be extremely proactive when it comes to investment or development.
I remember people questioning me about the opportunities in M&A in 2025. I think that we've been demonstrating that whenever there's an opportunity, we're not shy. We've been bringing in Dr. Jart+ plus Medik8 plus Color Wow plus the deal with Kering.
This in one single year, just because there were a lot of opportunities and we have the balance sheet to afford all of those acquisitions.
Okay. We'll stay with that topic then if we can steal another minute, Eva. Is that okay?
You can steal as many minutes as you like.
Okay. Our global CEO, Nicolas, recently said the deal with Kering doesn't prevent us from considering any options with Armani. Do you intend to remain a minority shareholder in the event of an agreement with Giorgio Armani's heirs?
Maybe one word about Kering, because I think it's important probably that we are all aware about this important deal. Sometimes people refer to Creed, which is one of the brands. I think what is very important for you to assess is that really that's a strategic move, because basically it's two big groups. One that is bringing fashion, the other one that is bringing his expertise in beauty and putting together the best they do for strong value creation in the future. It is obvious that when you consider the brands that will be joining the portfolio of Luxe division tomorrow, those are strong additions for the long-term development of the division.
Because Creed is one of the top premium brands worldwide. Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, and tomorrow Gucci, we are speaking about top brands that have already a solid equity, a solid awareness sometimes in all the regions.
Of course, bringing them into the portfolio of L'Oréal, that's at the core of what we do at best. I don't say it's plug and play, because at the end, when you go into detail, it's a lot of work for integration. This is the kind of deal with no uncertainties, low or even zero risk for a group like us, and therefore a very promising future when it comes to the development of those brands. This, of course, will not prevent L'Oréal to go even further if we have good opportunities.
You mentioned about Armani. Of course, we are still very sad by the passing of Mr. Armani, considering the strong collaboration that we have had with him and his teams for something like four decades now. First, we are quite comfortable because, as you know, we renewed the license.
The term is 2050. We are quite at ease. Definitely, first, we are very honored by the consideration of the heirs of the family towards their willingness to see L'Oréal investing into their company. Definitely, this is something that we will look at. We will start working on that very soon. I cannot disclose more today, but this is the kind of things that you have to look at when you are a leader like L'Oréal in luxury beauty.
Maybe we stay on the theme of difficult questions about how we might spend our future money. Hypothetically, what advantages would L'Oréal gain from taking a bigger stake in Galderma compared to our current 10%? What would have been the main surprises and key learnings from our partnership so far? What strengths of both L'Oréal and of Galderma have been particularly emphasized through this partnership?
Okay. First, let's remind us something which is very important at the heart of the strategy. We want to be in beauty, only in beauty, but in all the beauty. Now, this being said, it's obvious that when you look at the evolution of the beauty, it's true that the boundaries are expanding. It's true that when just a few years ago, everything was about topical products, things have been moving extremely fast. When you look today at how fast the evolution of aesthetics is visible, it's visible in key markets here in the U.S., but in China as well. It's becoming more and more affordable.
It's becoming less and less taboo. I think here in the U.S., we have already 20% of the population that has gone in a clinic. There are 40% that intend to do in the next future.
Proving that this is a trend that will still increase. Therefore, taking a 10% share in Galderma is, of course, a clear message that we want to enter into this market. With a lot of humility, we are humble. We know that going into this market, the rules are not the same as the ones that we know pretty well. We do not want to rush into something that is working with different rules. It is a lot about understanding all the process of why a consumer is going into a clinic, how does it work, what is the role of a doctor, how the regulation is moving, what are the new additions in terms of product coming to the market today and tomorrow.
Our advanced research is working a lot on understanding what is the innovation that will come in the next 10 to 15 years.
There is a huge amount of information to digest. A lot has been done already. It's not over. That's why, as you know, we've been investing with minority share and minority stakes, but in a chain here in the U.S. called SkinSpirit. When you have the ability to be in those clinics to understand how the market has been evolving in the past few months, because it's still evolving, it's critical to understand exactly what will be the important moves that we will need to understand and tomorrow to digest to be in this market.
Maybe we finish then conversely with another situation, which is the relationship with Nestlé. First, the question is, have you had the opportunity to meet with Nestlé's new chairman and CEO? Second, do you believe the likelihood of Nestlé divesting its stake in L'Oréal is higher now? Could L'Oréal repurchase the entire stake if Nestlé decided to sell it? Would this, in fact, be more challenging given the recent Galderma and Kering investments?
There is a new management, it's true, in Nestlé. At the end, this is a typical question that you should ask to Nestlé, because on our side, I still repeat that we are very happy with this long-term partnership that we had with Nestlé. It's a very strong consumer good with a deep knowledge of the way the market operates worldwide. They have been accompanying all the critical phases of our development. It is a solid partner. We are very happy with the stake they have and the role they've been playing in the board of L'Oréal. The decision is on their hands.
As usual, if they want to move, if they want to sell, of course, we will be looking at what is the opportunity to L'Oréal to buy all or part of the share that they will be willing to put on the market. That is the only thing I can say. Again, I am quite confident because of the strength of our balance sheet, of course, we can do certain operations with them. On the other side, as I said before, we still have a stake above 7% in Sanofi. We can leverage also this financial asset to cope with that kind of moves in the future.
Okay. Christophe, thank you. We took a bit more time than planned, but I think it was interesting. I hope for everyone. I know Eva has some logistics to share before we leave the room because it's important that everybody knows where to go, when to go, and not to miss the bus tomorrow.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.